Apache Spark Reviews

We use Apache Spark for storage and processing.

The most valuable feature of Apache Spark is its flexibility.

Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved.

I have been using Apache Spark for four to five years.

Around 15 data scientists are using Apache Spark in our organization.

Apache Spark's initial setup is slightly complex compared to other other solutions. Data scientists could install our previous tools with minimal supervision, whereas Apache Spark requires some IT support. Apache Spark's installation is a time-consuming process because it requires ensuring that all the ports have been accessed properly following certain guidelines.

While installing Apache Spark, I must look at the documentation and be very specific about the configuration settings. Only then I'll be able to install it.

Apache Spark is an expensive solution.

I would recommend Apache Spark to other users.

Overall, I rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten.

Our customers configure their software applications, and I use Apache to check them. We use it for data processing.

The data processing framework is good. The product is very useful.

The solution must improve its performance.

I have been using the solution for four to five years.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability more than nine out of ten.

We have a small business. Around four people in my organization use the solution.

The deployment was easy.

The solution was deployed with the help of third-party consultants.

Overall, I rate the product more than eight out of ten.

Predominantly, I use Spark for data analysis on top of datasets containing tens of millions of records.

I have an example. We had a single-threaded application that used to run for about four to five hours, but with Spark, it got reduced to under one hour.

The distribution of tasks, like the seamless map-reduce functionality, is quite impressive. For the user, it appears as simple single-line data manipulations, but behind the scenes, the executor pool intelligently distributes the map and reduce functions.

The visualization could be improved.

I have been working with Apache Spark for only a few months, not too long.

I haven't faced any stability issues. It has been stable in my experience.

When it comes to the scalability of Spark, it's primarily a processing engine, not a database engine. I haven't tested it extensively with large record sizes.

In my organization, quite a few people are using Spark. In my smaller team, there are only two users.

In terms of maintenance, when the load hits around 95%, we need to prioritize scripts and analysis within the team. 

We coordinate and prioritize based on the available resources. If there were self-service tools or better hand-holding for such situations, it would make things easier.

Currently, we extensively use pandas and Polaris. We are leveraging Docker and Kubernetes as a framework, along with AWS Batch for distribution. This is the closest substitute we have for Spark Distribution.

Both Docker and Kubernetes are more general-purpose solutions. If someone is already using Kubernetes and it's provided as a service, it can be used for special-purpose utilization, similar to Docker and Kubernetes.

In such cases, users may need to write the parallelization logic themselves, but it's relatively easy to onboard and start with a distributed load. Spark, on the other hand, is primarily used for special-purpose utilization. Users typically choose Spark when they have data-intensive tasks.

Another significant issue with Spark is its syntactics. For instance, if we have libraries like Panda or Polaris, we can run them single-threaded on a single core, or we can distribute them leveraging Kubernetes.

We don't need to rewrite that code base for Spark. However, if we are writing code specifically for Spark Executors, it will not be amenable to running it locally.

I would recommend understanding the use case better. Only if it fits your use case, then go for it. But it is a great tool.

Overall, I would rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten. 

I use it mostly for ETL transformations and data processing. I have used Spark on-premises as well as on the cloud.

Spark has been at the forefront of data processing engine. I have used Apache Spark for multiple projects for different clients. It is an excellent tool to process massive amount of data. 

Its scalability and speed are very valuable. You can scale it a lot. It is a great technology for big data. It is definitely better than a lot of earlier warehouse or pipeline solutions, such as Informatica.

Spark SQL is very compliant with normal SQL that we have been using over the years. This makes it easy to code in Spark. It is just like using normal SQL. You can use the APIs of Spark or you can directly write SQL code and run it. This is something that I feel is useful in Spark.

Its UI can be better. Maintaining the history server is a little cumbersome, and it should be improved. I had issues while looking at the historical tags, which sometimes created problems. You have to separately create a history server and run it. Such things can be made easier. Instead of separately installing the history server, it can be made a part of the whole setup so that whenever you set it up, it becomes available.

I have been using this solution for around 7 years.

There were bugs three to four years ago, which have been resolved. There were a couple of issues related to slowness when we did a lot of transformations using the Width columns. I was writing a POC on ETL for moving from Informatica to Spark SQL for the ETL pipeline. It required the use of hundreds of Width columns to change the column name or add some transformation, which made it slow. It happened in versions prior to version 1.6, and it seems that this issue has been fixed later on.

It is very scalable. You can scale it a lot.

I haven't contacted them.

The initial setup was a little complex when I was using open-source Spark. I was doing a POC in the on-premise environment, and the initial setup was a little cumbersome. It required a lot of set up on Unix systems. We also had to do a lot of configurations and install a lot of things. 

After I moved to the Cloudera CDH version, it was a little easy. It is a bundled product, so you just install whatever you want and use it.

Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera.

I would definitely recommend Spark. It is a great product. I like Spark a lot, and most of the features have been quite good. Its initial learning curve is a bit high, but as you learn it, it becomes very easy.

I would rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten.

Apache Spark is a programming language similar to Java or Python. In my most recent deployment, we used Apache Spark to build engineering pipelines to move data from sources into the data lake.

One of Apache Spark's most valuable features is that it supports in-memory processing, the execution of jobs compared to traditional tools is very fast.

Apache Spark could improve the connectors that it supports. There are a lot of open-source databases in the market. For example, cloud databases, such as Redshift, Snowflake, and Synapse. Apache Spark should have connectors present to connect to these databases. There are a lot of workarounds required to connect to those databases, but it should have inbuilt connectors.

I have been using Apache Spark for approximately five years.

Apache Spark is stable.

I have found Apache Spark to be scalable.

Apache Spark is open-source, there is no team that will give you dedicated support, but you can post your queries on the community forums, and usually, you will receive a good response. Since it's open-source, you depend on freelance developers to respond to you, you cannot put a time limit there, but the response, on average, is pretty good.

If Apache Spark is in the cloud, setting it up will require only minutes. If it's on Amazon, GCP, or Microsoft cloud, it'll take minutes to set everything up. However, if you are using the on-premise version, then it might take some time to set up the environment.

I rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten.

We are using it for big data. We are using a small part of it, which is related to using data.

It is useful for handling large amounts of data. It is very useful for scientific purposes.

There are some difficulties that we are working on. It is useful for scientific purposes, but for commercial use of big data, it gives some trouble.

They should improve the stability of the product. We use Spark Executors and Spark Drivers to link to our own environment, and they are not the most stable products. Its scalability is also an issue.

We are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling.

In my company, it has been used for several years, but I have been using it for seven months.

It is not scalable. Scalability is one of the issues.

It is open source from my point of view. So, there is no support.

I would advise not using it if you don't have experienced users inside your organization. If you have to figure it all out on your own, then you shouldn't start with it.

Overall, I would rate it a six out of 10. For a commercial use case, it is a six out of 10. For scientific purposes, it is an eight out of 10.

The solution can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise.

We are using Apache Spark, for large volume interactive data analysis.

MechBot is an enterprise, one-click installation, trusted data excellence platform. Underneath, I am using Apache Spark, Kafka, Hadoop HDFS, and Elasticsearch.

Apache Spark can do large volume interactive data analysis.

Apache Spark is very difficult to use. It would require a data engineer. It is not available for every engineer today because they need to understand the different concepts of Spark, which is very, very difficult and it is not easy to learn.

I have been using Apache Spark for approximately 11 years.

The solution is stable.

Apache Spark is scalable. However, it needs enormous technical skills to make it scalable. It is not a simple task.

We have approximately 20 people using this solution.

If you want to distribute Apache Spark in a certain way, it is simple. Not every engineer can do it. You need DevOps specialized skills on Spark is what is required.

If we are going to deploy the solution in a one-layer laptop installation, it is very straightforward, but this is not what someone is going to deploy in the production site.

Since we are using the Apache Spark version, not the data bricks version, it is an Apache license version, the support and resolution of the bug are actually late or delayed. The Apache license is free.

We are well versed in Spark, the version, the internal structure of Spark, and we know what exactly Spark is doing. 

The solution cannot be easier. Everything cannot be made simpler because it involves core data, computer science, pro-engineering, and not many people are actually aware of it.

I rate Apache Spark a six out of ten.

You can do a lot of things in terms of the transformation of data. You can store and transform and stream data. It's very useful and has many use cases.

Overall, it's a very nice tool.

It is great for transforming data and doing micro-streamings or micro-batching.

The product offers an open-source version.

The solution has been very stable.

The scalability is good.

Apache Spark is a huge tool. It has many use cases and is very flexible. You can use it with so many other platforms. 

Spark, as a tool, is easy to work with as you can work with Python, Scala, and Java.

If you are developing projects, and you need to not put them in a production scenario, you might need more than a cluster of servers, as it requires distributed computing.

It's not easy to install. You are typically dealing with a big data system.

It's not a simple, straightforward architecture. 

I've been using the solution for three years.

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's a reliable solution. 

We have found the scalability to be good. If your company needs to expand it, it can do so.

We have five people working on the solution currently.

There isn't really technical support for open source. You need to do your own studying. There are lots of places to find information. You can find details online, or in books, et cetera. There are even courses you can take that can help you understand Spark.

I also use Databricks, which I use in the cloud.

When handling big data systems, the installation is a bit difficult. When you need to deploy the systems, it's better to use services like Databricks.

I am not a professional admin. I am a developer for and design architecture.

You can use it in your standalone system, however, it's not the best way. It would be okay for little branch codes, not for production.

We use the open-source version. It is free to use. However, you do need to have servers. We have three or four. they can be on-premises or in the cloud. 

I have the solution installed on my computer and on our servers. You can use it on-premises or as a SaaS.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. I've been very pleased with its capabilities. 

I would recommend the solution for the people who need to deploy projects with streaming. If you have many different sources or different types of data, and you need to put everything in the same place - like a data lake - Spark, at this moment, has the right tools. It's an important solution for data science, for data detectors. You can put all of the information in one place with Spark.