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Apache Spark Streaming vs Databricks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Spark Streaming
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Spark Streaming is 4.4%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 8.1%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks8.1%
Apache Spark Streaming4.4%
Other87.5%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Himansu Jena - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Project Manager at Raj Subhatech
Efficient real-time data management and analysis with advanced features
There are various ways we can improve Apache Spark Streaming through best practices. The initial part requires attention to batch interval tuning, which helps small intervals in micro batches based on latency requirements and helps prevent back pressure. We can use data formats such as Parquet or ORC for storage that needs faster reads and leveraging feature predicate push-down optimizations. We can implement serialization which helps with any Kyro in terms of .NET or Java. We have boxing and unboxing serialization for XML and JSON for converting key-pair values stored in browser. We can also implement caching mechanisms for storing and recomputing multiple operations. We can use specified joins which help with smaller databases, and distributed joins can minimize users. We can implement project optimization memory for CPU efficiency, known as Tungsten. Additionally, load balancing, checkpointing, and schema evaluation are areas to consider based on performance and bottlenecks. We can use Bugzilla tools for tracking and Splunk to monitor the performance of process systems, utilization, and performance based on data frames or data sets.
SimonRobinson - PeerSpot reviewer
Governance And Engagement Lead
Improved data governance has enabled sensitive data tracking but cost management still needs work
I believe we could improve Databricks integration with cloud service providers. The impact of our current integration has not been particularly good, and it's becoming very expensive for us. The inefficiencies in our implementation, such as not shutting down warehouses when they're not in use or reserving the right number of credits, have led to increased costs. We made several beginner mistakes, such as not taking advantage of incremental loading and running overly complicated queries all the time. We should be using ETL tools to help us instead of doing it directly in Databricks. We need more experienced professionals to manage Databricks effectively, as it's not as forgiving as other platforms such as Snowflake. I think introducing customer repositories would facilitate easier implementation with Databricks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apache Spark Streaming was straightforward in terms of maintenance. It was actively developed, and migrating from an older to a newer version was quite simple."
"It is the most scalable tool that I have seen before."
"As an open-source solution, using it is basically free."
"It's the fastest solution on the market with low latency data on data transformations."
"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."
"As an open-source solution, using it is basically free."
"With Apache Spark Streaming, you can have multiple kinds of windows; depending on your use case, you can select either a tumbling window, a sliding window, or a static window to determine how much data you want to process at a single point of time."
"Apache Spark Streaming's most valuable feature is near real-time analytics, as developers can build APIs easily for a code-steaming pipeline and the solution has an ecosystem of integration with other stock services."
"Stability of the product is good, whether it's handling large volumes, diverse elements of data or processing data at speed."
"I haven't heard about any major stability issues. At this time I feel like it's stable."
"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."
"I would rate them ten out of ten."
"Databricks is scalable, it operates three times faster than any of the other ecosystems which we have experimented on."
"The most valuable feature of Databricks is the integration of the data warehouse and data lake, and the development of the lake house. Additionally, it integrates well with Spark for processing data in production."
"Databricks is a unified solution that we can use for streaming. It is supporting open source languages, which are cloud-agnostic. When I do database coding if any other tool has a similar language pack to Excel or SQL, I can use the same knowledge, limiting the need to learn new things. It supports a lot of Python libraries where I can use some very easily."
"If you have a lot of data, Databricks is a good choice."
 

Cons

"The service structure of Apache Spark Streaming can improve. There are a lot of issues with memory management and latency."
"We would like to have the ability to do arbitrary stateful functions in Python."
"One improvement I would expect is real-time processing instead of micro-batch or near real-time."
"Integrating event-level streaming capabilities could be beneficial."
"When dealing with various data types including COBOL, Excel, JSON, video, audio, and MPG files, challenges can arise with incomplete or missing values."
"While it is reliable, there are some issues with Apache Spark Streaming as it is not 100% reliable."
"The initial setup is quite complex."
"We don't have enough experience to be judgmental about its flaws."
"However, my team tells me there are limitations with streaming events. The connectors work with a small set of platforms."
"The integration of data could be a bit better."
"The product cannot be integrated with a popular coding IDE."
"Costs can quickly add up if you don't plan for it."
"I would like it if Databricks adopted an interface more like R Studio."
"In the next release, I would like to see more optimization features."
"While Databricks is generally a robust solution, I have noticed a limitation with debugging in the Delta Live Table, which could be improved."
"When I used the support, I had communication problems because of the language barrier with the agent. The accent was difficult to understand."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I was using the open-source community version, which was self-hosted."
"People pay for Apache Spark Streaming as a service."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"My smallest project is around a hundred euros, and my most expensive is just under a thousand euros a week. That is based on terabytes of data processed each month."
"We pay as we go, so there isn't a fixed price. It's charged by the unit. I don't have any details detail about how they measure this, but it should be a mix between processing and quantity of data handled. We run a simulation based on our use cases, which gives us an estimate. We've been monitoring this, and the costs have met our expectations."
"The price is okay. It's competitive."
"Databricks is a very expensive solution. Pricing is an area that could definitely be improved. They could provide a lower end compute and probably reduce the price."
"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."
"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
 

Also Known As

Spark Streaming
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, eBay Inc.
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark Streaming vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.