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Apache NiFi 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache NiFi
Ranking in Compute Service
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Spark
Ranking in Compute Service
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Java Frameworks (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Apache NiFi is 9.3%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Spark is 12.0%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Spark12.0%
Apache NiFi9.3%
Other78.7%
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Bharghava Raghavendra Beesa - PeerSpot reviewer
The tool enables effective data transformation and integration
There are some areas for improvement, particularly with record-level tasks that take a bit of time. The quality of JSON data processing could be improved, as JSON workloads require manual conversions without a specific process. Enhancing features related to alerting would be helpful, including mobile alerts for pipeline issues. Integration with mobile devices for error alerts would simplify information delivery.
Omar Khaled - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowering data consolidation and fast decision-making with efficient big data processing
I can improve the organization's functions by taking less time to make decisions. To make the right decision, you need the right data, and a solution can provide this by hiring talent and employees who can consolidate data from different sources and organize it. Not all solutions can make this data fast enough to be used, except for solutions such as Apache Spark Structured Streaming. To make the right decision, you should have both accurate and fast data. Apache Spark itself is similar to the Python programming language. Python is a language with many libraries for mathematics and machine learning. Apache Spark is the solution, and within it, you have PySpark, which is the API for Apache Spark to write and run Python code. Within it, there are many APIs, including SQL APIs, allowing you to write SQL code within a Python function in Apache Spark. You can also use Apache Spark Structured Streaming and machine learning APIs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Visually, this is a good product."
"We can integrate the tool with other applications easily."
"The initial setup is very easy. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, where one point is difficult, and ten points are easy."
"The most valuable features of this solution are ease of use and implementation."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"It's an automated flow, where you can build a flow from source to destination, then do the transformation in between."
"It is highly effective for handling real-time data by working with APIs for immediate and continuous data extraction."
"The most valuable feature has been the range of clients and the range of connectors that we could use."
"AI libraries are the most valuable. They provide extensibility and usability. Spark has a lot of connectors, which is a very important and useful feature for AI. You need to connect a lot of points for AI, and you have to get data from those systems. Connectors are very wide in Spark. With a Spark cluster, you can get fast results, especially for AI."
"The data processing framework is good."
"The memory processing engine is the solution's most valuable aspect. It processes everything extremely fast, and it's in the cluster itself. It acts as a memory engine and is very effective in processing data correctly."
"The solution has been very stable."
"The product is useful for analytics."
"Spark can handle small to huge data and is suitable for any size of company."
"With Spark, we parallelize our operations, efficiently accessing both historical and real-time data."
"The distribution of tasks, like the seamless map-reduce functionality, is quite impressive."
 

Cons

"I think the UI interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"The quality of JSON data processing could be improved, as JSON workloads require manual conversions without a specific process."
"The overall stability of this solution could be improved. In a future release, we would like to have access to more features that could be used in a parallel way. This would provide more freedom with processing."
"There are some claims that NiFi is cloud-native but we have tested it, and it's not."
"There should be a better way to integrate a development environment with local tools."
"There is room for improvement in integration with SSO. For example, NiFi does not have any integration with SSO. And if I want to give some kind of rollback access control across the organization. That is not possible."
"More features must be added to the product."
"We run many jobs, and there are already large tables. When we do not control NiFi on time, all reports fail for the day. So it's pretty slow to control, and it has to be improved."
"They could improve the issues related to programming language for the platform."
"There were some problems related to the product's compatibility with a few Python libraries."
"Apache Spark lacks geospatial data."
"It's not easy to install."
"When you want to extract data from your HDFS and other sources then it is kind of tricky because you have to connect with those sources."
"The solution’s integration with other platforms should be improved."
"Apache Spark should add some resource management improvements to the algorithms."
"The product could improve the user interface and make it easier for new users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I used the tool's free version."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is open-source."
"We use the free version of Apache NiFi."
"Apache Spark is not too cheap. You have to pay for hardware and Cloudera licenses. Of course, there is a solution with open source without Cloudera."
"I did not pay anything when using the tool on cloud services, but I had to pay on the compute side. The tool is not expensive compared with the benefits it offers. I rate the price as an eight out of ten."
"They provide an open-source license for the on-premise version."
"Licensing costs can vary. For instance, when purchasing a virtual machine, you're asked if you want to take advantage of the hybrid benefit or if you prefer the license costs to be included upfront by the cloud service provider, such as Azure. If you choose the hybrid benefit, it indicates you already possess a license for the operating system and wish to avoid additional charges for that specific VM in Azure. This approach allows for a reduction in licensing costs, charging only for the service and associated resources."
"It is an open-source platform. We do not pay for its subscription."
"On the cloud model can be expensive as it requires substantial resources for implementation, covering on-premises hardware, memory, and licensing."
"Considering the product version used in my company, I feel that the tool is not costly since the product is available for free."
"The solution is affordable and there are no additional licensing costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache NiFi?
Apache NiFi is open-source and free. Its integration with systems like Cloudera can be expensive, but Apache NiFi itself presents the best pricing as a standalone tool.
What needs improvement with Apache NiFi?
The logging system of Apache NiFi needs improvement. It is difficult to debug compared to Airflow ( /products/apache-airflow-reviews ), where task details and issues are clear. With Apache NiFi, I ...
What do you like most about Apache Spark?
We use Spark to process data from different data sources.
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?
Regarding Apache Spark, I have only used Apache Spark Structured Streaming, not the machine learning components. I am uncertain about specific improvements needed today. However, after five years, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Macquarie Telecom Group, Dovestech, Slovak Telekom, Looker, Hastings Group
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 Apache NiFi vs. Apache Spark and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,300 professionals have used our research since 2012.