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Amazon EC2 vs Apache Spark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
Amazon EC2 cuts costs, boosts efficiency, reduces downtime, and enhances innovation compared to on-premise infrastructure.
Sentiment score
5.6
Apache Spark provides up to 50% cost savings, boosting efficiency and reducing expenses significantly in machine learning analytics.
I would say I have saved more than a week with Amazon EC2 compared to my previous on-premises setup.
Architect at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Amazon EC2 support is responsive and efficient, with high ratings, though some face integration challenges requiring partner assistance.
Sentiment score
6.0
Apache Spark offers vibrant community support and resources, with commercial support available through vendors like Cloudera and Hadoop.
I would rate technical support from Amazon a 10, as we have on-prem AWS experts.
Consultant at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
I would rate the technical support of Apache Spark an eight because when we had questions, we found solutions, and it was straightforward.
Consultant, Chief Engineer, Teamleiter at infoteam Software AG
I have received support via newsgroups or guidance on specific discussions, which is what I would expect in an open-source situation.
Data Architect at Devtech
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Amazon EC2's scalability and flexibility in resource adjustment are highly rated, though some concerns with older instance types exist.
Sentiment score
7.4
Apache Spark's scalability and versatility enable efficient large-scale data processing, making it a reliable choice for diverse teams.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon EC2 is stable and reliable, boasting 99.99% uptime, auto-recovery, and minimal downtimes with proper configuration.
Sentiment score
7.4
Apache Spark is praised for its robust stability and reliability, with high user ratings despite minor configuration challenges.
MapReduce needs to perform numerous disk input and output operations, while Apache Spark can use memory to store and process data.
Data Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Without a doubt, we have had some crashes because each situation is different, and while the prototype in my environment is stable, we do not know everything at other customer sites.
Data Architect at Devtech
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EC2 users seek cost-effective solutions with better scalability, integration, support, security, and platform compatibility improvements.
Apache Spark needs improvements in real-time querying, user-friendliness, logging, large dataset handling, and expanded programming language support.
I have heard from multiple people that if you have an Amazon EC2 instance running and you stop it, the billing continues unless you terminate the Amazon EC2 instance.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
I think improvements can be made to Amazon EC2 by increasing the memory, offering more instance types, and including GPUs as mentioned in the keynote.
Architect at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The price for Amazon EC2 could be lower; it's not cheap, so when we want something cheaper, we do go serverless if we can.
Consultant at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Various tools like Informatica, TIBCO, or Talend offer specific aspects, licensing can be costly;
Data Architect at Devtech
I find that there really lacks the technical depth to do any recommendations for future updates of Apache Spark.
Consultant, Chief Engineer, Teamleiter at infoteam Software AG
 

Setup Cost

Amazon EC2 pricing varies by usage, offering flexible models but can be costly for large deployments despite competitive options.
Apache Spark is cost-effective but can incur high infrastructure costs, especially in cloud setups like Databricks, with setup time variability.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EC2 offers scalability, cost efficiency, security, and flexibility with easy provisioning and seamless AWS integration for diverse workloads.
Apache Spark provides scalable, in-memory data processing with flexible support for distributed computing, streaming, and machine learning integration.
With the cloud, deployment is easy, and within a minute, we can deploy the server and give it to the developers so they can work on it right away after deployment.
Architect at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The main benefits Amazon EC2 provides for me as an end user are cost savings, as they are more OpEx costs rather than CapEx for us.
Consultant at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Amazon EC2 offers flexibility.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most important part is that everything can be connected, and the data exchange across overseas connections is fast and reliable.
Consultant, Chief Engineer, Teamleiter at infoteam Software AG
Apache Spark is the solution, and within it, you have PySpark, which is the API for Apache Spark to write and run Python code.
Data Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
The solution is beneficial in that it provides a base-level long-held understanding of the framework that is not variant day by day, which is very helpful in my prototyping activity as an architect trying to assess Apache Spark, Great Expectations, and Vault-based solutions versus those proposed by clients like TIBCO or Informatica.
Data Architect at Devtech
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2
Ranking in Compute Service
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Spark
Ranking in Compute Service
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Java Frameworks (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 is 13.6%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Spark is 9.0%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon EC213.6%
Apache Spark9.0%
Other77.4%
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

BS
AWS Architect at Corvit Networks
Elasticity and auto scaling enhance performance and cost efficiency
Amazon EC2 features that I have found the most valuable and useful include elasticity and scalability, a variety of instance types, pay-as-you-go pricing, security, isolation, AMIs, integration with other services, Spot Instances, and high availability of reliability, user data, and EC2 metadata. These include Amazon EC2 images, image builder, and auto scaling as instance types, pricing models, and security with VPC, IAM roles, and security groups. The most beneficial features of Amazon EC2 for cloud operations are EC2 Auto Scaling with Elastic Load Balancing, which allows scale up and scale down, maintains high availability, and optimizes costs. Auto Scaling provides fault tolerance, performance optimization, and cost efficiency. A real-world benefit is that an instance automatically handles the load. When traffic drops, it reduces the number of instances. Other highly beneficial Amazon EC2 features include Spot Instances, multiple instance types, custom AMIs, VPC security groups, strong network and access security, and Elastic IPs, which are the static IPs for dynamic instances.
Devindra Weerasooriya - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at Devtech
Provides a consistent framework for building data integration and access solutions with reliable performance
The in-memory computation feature is certainly helpful for my processing tasks. It is helpful because while using structures that could be held in memory rather than stored during the period of computation, I go for the in-memory option, though there are limitations related to holding it in memory that need to be addressed, but I have a preference for in-memory computation. The solution is beneficial in that it provides a base-level long-held understanding of the framework that is not variant day by day, which is very helpful in my prototyping activity as an architect trying to assess Apache Spark, Great Expectations, and Vault-based solutions versus those proposed by clients like TIBCO or Informatica.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?
The scalability and elasticity are helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2?
Advice on Setup Cost, Pricing, and Licensing for EC2: 1. Start Small & Use Free Tier if Possible For new users or small applications, the AWS Free Tier offers limited EC2 usage free for 12 mont...
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?
The price for Amazon EC2 could be lower; it's not cheap, so when we want something cheaper, we do go serverless if we can. From my side, a point for improvement is definitely the pricing. It could ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Spark?
Apache Spark is open-source, so it doesn't incur any charges.
What needs improvement with Apache Spark?
I find that there really lacks the technical depth to do any recommendations for future updates of Apache Spark. I used it for two years for our prototype work and testing things, but because I had...
What is your primary use case for Apache Spark?
I attempted to use Apache Spark in one of our customer projects, but after the initial test, our customer moved to another technology and another database system. I do not have any final remarks on...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
NASA JPL, UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, UC Santa Cruz, TripAdvisor, Taboola, Agile Lab, Art.com, Baidu, Alibaba Taobao, EURECOM, Hitachi Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EC2 vs. Apache Spark and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.