Amazon EMR vs Oracle Big Data Appliance comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Additionally, 83% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Amazon EMR

Read 25 Amazon EMR reviews

3,743 Views
1,535 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Oracle Big Data Appliance

Read 6 Oracle Big Data Appliance reviews

1,559 Views
1,232 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Amazon EMR

Oracle Big Data Appliance

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon EMR and Oracle Big Data Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Teradata, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Data Warehouse Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Data Warehouse

August 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EMR

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (3rd), Cloud Data Warehouse (14th)

Oracle Big Data Appliance

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (15th)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1343079

Senior Chief Engineer (Enterprise System Presales/Postsales) at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Has simplified ETL workflows with on-demand processing but needs improved cost efficiency and visibility

I have used AWS Glue with S3 for making tables and databases, but regarding Amazon EMR, I do not remember much as we are currently using it very minimally. This is my observation: In EKS, we have had to deploy by ourselves because EKS does not provide the Hadoop framework, Spark, Hive, and everything, but we have completed all the deployment ourselves. Whereas Amazon EMR provides all these things. The cost factor differs significantly. When you run Spark application on EKS, you run at the pod level, so you can control the compute cost. But in Amazon EMR, when you have to run one application, you have to launch the entire EC2. In Qubole, the interface was very good. I could see many details because in Amazon EMR console, very few details are available. In Qubole, at one link, you can get all the details of what is happening, how the processes are running, and the cost decreased by using Qubole. I found Qubole more user-friendly and cost-effective. From the security point of view, we had to open some access rights to Qubole, which might be a drawback in comparison to Amazon EMR which is native to AWS.

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reviewer1031826

Analytics Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Platinum partnership leverages advanced storage and fosters seamless data integration

Areas of Oracle Big Data Appliance that can be improved include the pricing perspective because nowadays they have competition. We have so many technologies that have come to the market for less than even one-fourth or one-fifth of the Oracle price. For my side, the last time I worked with Oracle was in '21, '22. The price is a challenge that they have to look after. From the storage and data management perspective, I cannot recall anything that they have to improve, but they have to improve the visualization part significantly because they offer Oracle BI, which is an extremely not-matured application.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easier to have everything connected via Amazon."

"One of the valuable features about this solution is that it's managed services, so it's pretty stable, and scalable as much as you wish. It has all the necessary distributions. With some additional work, it's also possible to change to a Spark version with the latest version of EMR. It also has Hudi, so we are leveraging Apache Hudi on EMR for change data capture, so then it comes out-of-the-box in EMR."

"A highly scalable platform to run vast amounts of data processing with very high efficiency."

"We are using applications, such as Splunk, Livy, Hadoop, and Spark. We are using all of these applications in Amazon EMR and they're helping us a lot."

"It has a variety of options and support systems."

"In Amazon EMR it is easy to rebuild anything, easy to upgrade and has good fault tolerance."

"This is the best tool for hosts and it's really flexible and scalable."

"The security of the managed workflow and the managed services are the best features for us. Since we inherited their security model and it's all managed services, those are the key benefits for our clients."

More Amazon EMR pros

"Because Big Data Appliance allows me to have a single source of truth, it means I have clean data that can be monetized and leveraged to gain more insights with real-time reports from the dashboard."

"The most valuable feature is that it can be used in conjunction with Spark memory processing, and our processing time has gone to 20 minutes from what used to be two or three hours on the mainframe."

"We could work on large unstructured datasets from different parts of the world on Facebook and Twitter to get better insights."

"The best feature of Oracle Big Data Appliance, from a price perspective for the storage, is because they have technology called the ZFS technology; it offers huge storage with a decent price."

"Big Data responds to my needs."

"This is a comprehensive solution that is easy to deploy."

"The best thing about the product is that the end-user can build the reports by themselves without really knowing anything about databases."

Cons

"There is room for improvement in pricing."

"One of the lacking features is good web support."

"Spark jobs take longer on Amazon EMR compared to previous experiences."

"The problem for us is it starts very slow; they need to improve the start time."

"In general, I would rate the solution at a four out of ten."

"Better monitoring, debugging, and stability are all needed."

"The initial setup was time-consuming, and deployment took approximately 30 minutes."

"There were times where they would release new versions and it seemed to end up breaking old versions, which is very strange."

More Amazon EMR cons

"It seems like the deployment of repositories has become more difficult in later versions of the product rather than easier."

"We had to pursue several performance tuning measures to bring up the system to scale."

"The product should be simplified for the average user."

"From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera."

"We need to display the results on our website. I think there is another product that joins with it to give you the possibility."

"Areas of Oracle Big Data Appliance that can be improved include the pricing perspective because nowadays they have competition; we have so many technologies that have come to the market for less than even one-fourth or one-fifth of the Oracle price."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars. That's happened to us twice, so I'm sensitive to it. We're still trying to work on that. Our smallest client probably spends a hundred thousand dollars yearly on licensing, while our largest is well over a million."

"The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive."

"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."

"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."

"Amazon EMR is not very expensive."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"You don't need to pay for licensing on a yearly or monthly basis, you only pay for what you use, in terms of underlying instances."

"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."

More Amazon EMR pricing and cost advice

"Oracle's prices are too high compared to others in the market."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EMR?

I would rate the price for Amazon EMR, where one is high and ten is low, as a good one.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon EMR?

I feel some lack of functionality in Amazon EMR. I have thoughts on what would be great to see in the product, such as AI/ML features or additional options.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Amazon EMR?

I find it easy to integrate Amazon EMR with other AWS services like S3 or EC2 for data processing needs. I would rate this review as eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle Big Data Appliance?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Oracle Big Data Appliance?

The typical use case for Oracle Big Data Appliance, which my clients use, is usually that the customer who has an Oracle application uses it because they can leverage the storage part. I don't need...

See all answers

Comparisons

Snowflake vs Amazon EMR

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs Amazon EMR

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Amazon EMR

Compared 6% of the time

Apache Spark vs Amazon EMR

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Data Fabric vs Amazon EMR

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon EMR Competitors

SAP BW4HANA vs Oracle Big Data Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

Apache Hadoop vs Oracle Big Data Appliance

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Integrated Analytics System vs Oracle Big Data Appliance

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Exadata vs Oracle Big Data Appliance

Compared 8% of the time

BigQuery vs Oracle Big Data Appliance

Compared 3% of the time

More Oracle Big Data Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EMR

August 2026

Download Amazon EMR product report

Buyer's Guide

Data Warehouse

August 2026

Download Oracle Big Data Appliance product report

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce

No data available

Overview

Amazon EMR simplifies big data processing by offering integration with popular tools. It's scalable and cost-efficient, enabling fast processing while managing infrastructure effortlessly. It's designed for users aiming to streamline data workflows and leverage its batch processing capabilities effectively.

Amazon EMR is a managed service that provides robust features for big data processing. It integrates seamlessly with S3, EC2, Hive, and Spark to facilitate sophisticated data transformation tasks and infrastructure management. It allows organizations to run data lakes, Spark, and Hadoop clusters effortlessly, offering flexibility with on-demand execution and extensive scalability. The platform is valued for its strong processing speed and comprehensive security features, making it ideal for complex data engineering projects. It supports both batch processing and real-time workflows, designed to eliminate hardware management while maintaining cost efficiency and stability.

What are the key features of Amazon EMR?

Cluster Management: Offers intuitive control and configuration of clusters
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with S3, EC2, Spark, and more
Scalability: Provides flexible scaling to meet data demands
Batch Processing: Allows efficient handling of large data sets
Cost Efficiency: Minimizes costs with managed service offerings

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Processing Speed: Fast performance for data processing tasks
Security: Built-in features ensure data protection
Infrastructure Simplification: Eliminates hardware management needs
Flexibility: Adapts to changing data loads with ease
Affordability: Offers economic processing power

Amazon EMR is implemented by industries such as healthcare and tech processing for complex data tasks like building data lakes or financial data processing. It supports AI-driven analytics and data engineering projects, integrating with SageMaker for predictions and maintaining workflows in public health applications, allowing professionals in different fields to manage data pipelines, resource utilization, and job execution efficiently.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Oracle Big Data Appliance offers a comprehensive platform integrating ZFS technology and supporting Spark, designed to boost performance with Hadoop distributions, ensuring data security and accessibility across multiple languages.

Oracle Big Data Appliance presents an adaptable solution facilitating data consolidation with robust storage technology, crucial for central data repositories. Its Spark in-memory processing significantly reduces time through seamless integration with Hadoop distributions like Hortonworks and Cloudera. Role-based security enhances organizational data access, while multi-language support meets diverse processing requirements. Although challenges exist in AI capabilities and visualization tool efficiency, the platform remains valuable for entity-wide deployment.

What key features does Oracle Big Data Appliance offer?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Enables non-technical users to build reports effortlessly.
ZFS Technology: Provides cost-effective storage solutions.
Spark on YARN Support: Enhances Hadoop performance with faster processing.
Security Roles: Ensures data access alignment with user privileges.
Multi-Language Support: Assists in handling diverse language processing needs.

What benefits should users look for when evaluating Oracle Big Data Appliance?

Centralized Data Management: Avoids the need for additional data warehouses.
Regulatory Reporting Facilitation: Eases compliance processes in sectors like Medicare.
Role-Based Reporting: Empowers end-users to create reports based on specific needs.
Consultation Integrations: Supports seamless data management when coupled with external services.

Oracle Big Data Appliance is predominantly used in healthcare and financial services, where data consolidation and regulatory compliance are crucial. Entities leverage Oracle's storage capabilities to maintain centralized repositories, expediting regulatory reporting and claim management processes, particularly benefiting sectors like Medicare. Consulting services frequently integrate Oracle platforms to enhance data management efficiency, especially for organizations utilizing Oracle applications.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Yelp

Caixa Bank

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Teradata, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: August 2026.

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