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Apache Pulsar vs Apache Spark Streaming comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Pulsar
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Spark Streaming
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Pulsar is 2.9%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Spark Streaming is 4.6%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Spark Streaming4.6%
Apache Pulsar2.9%
Other92.5%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1087029 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Vlaanderen connect.
The solution can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code
The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform. It operates differently than a traditional streaming platform with storage and computing handled separately. It scales easier and better than Kafka which can be stubborn. You can even make it act like Kafka because it understands Kafka APIs. There are even companies that will sell you Kafka but underneath it is Apache Pulsar. The solution is very compatible because it can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code.
Khoa Dang Le - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal AI Engineer at IMT Solutions
Have faced challenges with complex data handling and seek smoother integration for machine learning workflows
I find the fault tolerance feature beneficial because I use it for serving data from a landing area. I understand all of the structures we have for Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, and MLlib. The ability of Apache Spark Streaming to handle out-of-order data using watermarking and windowing is something we use in our pipeline. Nearly 50% of our usage is based on that because we use it for landing data, and we appreciate that we can work with it. The main benefits of Apache Spark Streaming include cost savings, time savings, and efficiency improvements about data storage. The fast storage capability is crucial because Apache Spark replaces Hadoop's MapReduce, allowing us to manage our data more efficiently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform."
"The platform’s most valuable feature for processing real-time data is its ability to handle continuous data streams."
"I appreciate Apache Spark Streaming's micro-batching capabilities; the watermarking functionality and related features are quite good."
"The main benefits of Apache Spark Streaming include cost savings, time savings, and efficiency improvements about data storage."
"With Apache Spark Streaming's integration with Anaconda and Miniconda with Python, I interact with databases using data frames or data sets in micro versions and create solutions based on business expectations for decision-making, logistic regression, linear regression, or machine learning which provides image or voice record and graphical data for improved accuracy."
"It is the most scalable tool that I have seen before."
"Apache Spark's capabilities for machine learning are quite extensive and can be used in a low-code way."
"Apache Spark Streaming has features like checkpointing and Streaming API that are useful."
"By integrating Apache Spark Streaming, the data freshness rate, and latency have significantly improved from 24-hour batch processing to less than one minute, facilitating faster communication to downstream systems, aiding marketing campaigns."
 

Cons

"Documentation is poor because much of it is in Chinese with no English translation."
"One improvement I would expect is real-time processing instead of micro-batch or near real-time."
"The solution itself could be easier to use."
"In terms of improvement, the UI could be better."
"The downside is when you have this the other way around in the columns, it becomes really hard to use."
"Monitoring is an area where they could definitely improve Apache Spark Streaming. When you have a streaming application, it generates numerous logs. After some time, the logs become meaningless because they're quite large and impossible to open."
"There could be an improvement in the area of the user configuration section, it should be less developer-focused and more business user-focused."
"Integrating event-level streaming capabilities could be beneficial."
"While it is reliable, there are some issues with Apache Spark Streaming as it is not 100% reliable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"People pay for Apache Spark Streaming as a service."
"I was using the open-source community version, which was self-hosted."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive, or not cost-effective, and ten is cheap, I rate the price a seven."
"Spark is an affordable solution, especially considering its open-source nature."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Apache Spark Streaming?
One of the improvements we need is in Spark SQL and the machine learning library. I don't think there is too much to work on, but the issue is when we want to use machine learning, we always need t...
What is your primary use case for Apache Spark Streaming?
We work with Apache Spark Streaming for our project because we use that as one of the landing data sources, and we work with it to ensure we can get all of the data before it goes through our data ...
What advice do you have for others considering Apache Spark Streaming?
One thing I would share with other organizations considering Apache Spark Streaming is the necessity of having effective data storage. We want to ensure we acquire and manage our data storage effec...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Spark Streaming
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, eBay Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Microsoft, Apache and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: September 2026.
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