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Apache Spark vs HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric comparison

 

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 Spark
Ranking in Hadoop
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Compute Service (4th), Java Frameworks (2nd)
HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric
Ranking in Hadoop
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Hadoop category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 17.7%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric is 15.4%, up from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Hadoop
 

Featured Reviews

Dunstan Matekenya - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source solution for data processing with portability
Apache Spark is known for its ease of use. Compared to other available data processing frameworks, it is user-friendly. While many choices now exist, Spark remains easy to use, particularly with Python. You can utilize familiar programming styles similar to Pandas in Python, including object-oriented programming. Another advantage is its portability. I can prototype and perform some initial tasks on my laptop using Spark without needing to be on Databricks or any cloud platform. I can transfer it to Databricks or other platforms, such as AWS. This flexibility allows me to improve processing even on my laptop. For instance, if I'm processing large amounts of data and find my laptop becoming slow, I can quickly switch to Spark. It handles small and large datasets efficiently, making it a versatile tool for various data processing needs.
Hamid M. Hamid - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and scalable tool that serves as a great database
The initial setup of HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric is easy. I am not sure how long it took to deploy HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric, but I haven't heard about any disadvantages when it comes to the time taken for the deployment. I remember that one of our company's clients who had purchased the product never mentioned the product's setup phase being complex. One of the drawbacks with HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric stems from the fact that the product's upgrade was not straightforward, and it was a complex process since one of the teams in my company who deals with the tool found the upgrade part to be tough. The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. My company has two dedicated staff members to look after the deployment and maintenance phases of HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Spark is used for transformations from large volumes of data, and it is usefully distributed."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its speed and efficiency. It's much faster than other tools and excels in parallel data processing. Unlike tools like Python or JavaScript, which may struggle with parallel processing, it allows us to handle large volumes of data with more power easily."
"Now, when we're tackling sentiment analysis using NLP technologies, we deal with unstructured data—customer chats, feedback on promotions or demos, and even media like images, audio, and video files. For processing such data, we rely on PySpark. Beneath the surface, Spark functions as a compute engine with in-memory processing capabilities, enhancing performance through features like broadcasting and caching. It's become a crucial tool, widely adopted by 90% of companies for a decade or more."
"Spark can handle small to huge data and is suitable for any size of company."
"ETL and streaming capabilities."
"The product’s most valuable features are lazy evaluation and workload distribution."
"One of Apache Spark's most valuable features is that it supports in-memory processing, the execution of jobs compared to traditional tools is very fast."
"The distribution of tasks, like the seamless map-reduce functionality, is quite impressive."
"I like the administration part."
"My customers find the product cheaper compared to other solutions. The previous solution that we used did not have unified analytics like the runtime or the analog."
"The model creation was very interesting, especially with the libraries provided by the platform."
"HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric can be accessed from any namespace globally as you would access it from a machine using an NFS."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
 

Cons

"It should support more programming languages."
"There were some problems related to the product's compatibility with a few Python libraries."
"The logging for the observability platform could be better."
"Apache Spark should add some resource management improvements to the algorithms."
"The Spark solution could improve in scheduling tasks and managing dependencies."
"The solution needs to optimize shuffling between workers."
"For improvement, I think the tool could make things easier for people who aren't very technical. There's a significant learning curve, and I've seen organizations give up because of it. Making it quicker or easier for non-technical people would be beneficial."
"Dynamic DataFrame options are not yet available."
"The product is not user-friendly."
"Having the ability to extend the services provided by the platform to an API architecture, a micro-services architecture, could be very helpful."
"HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric is not compatible with third-party tools."
"The deployment could be faster. I want more support for the data lake in the next release."
"Upgrading Ezmeral to a new version is a pain. They're trying to make the solution more container-friendly, so I think they're going in the right direction. The only problem we've had in the past was the upgrades. The process isn't smooth due to how the Red Hat operating system upgrades currently work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The tool is an open-source product. If you're using the open-source Apache Spark, no fees are involved at any time. Charges only come into play when using it with other services like Databricks."
"The product is expensive, considering the setup."
"Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera."
"The solution is affordable and there are no additional licensing costs."
"Considering the product version used in my company, I feel that the tool is not costly since the product is available for free."
"It is an open-source platform. We do not pay for its subscription."
"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."
"HPE is flexible with you if you are an existing customer. They offer different models that might be beneficial for your organization. It all depends on how you negotiate."
"The tool's price is cheap and based on a usage basis. The solution's licensing costs are yearly and there are no extra costs."
"There is a need for my company to pay for the licensing costs of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
There is complexity when it comes to understanding the whole ecosystem, especially for beginners. I find it quite complex to understand how a Spark job is initiated, the roles of driver nodes, work...
What do you like most about HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric?
It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution.
What needs improvement with HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric?
There are some drawbacks in HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric when it comes to the interoperability part. HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric is not compatible with third-party tools. For example, HPE Ezmeral Data Fabri...
What is your primary use case for HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric?
The main purpose of HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric for me is that it acts as a database. In my company, we store our data with the help of HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric. It is possible to use Spark engine with ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MapR, MapR Data Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NASA JPL, UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, UC Santa Cruz, TripAdvisor, Taboola, Agile Lab, Art.com, Baidu, Alibaba Taobao, EURECOM, Hitachi Solutions
Valence Health, Goodgame Studios, Pico, Terbium Labs, sovrn, Harte Hanks, Quantium, Razorsight, Novartis, Experian, Dentsu ix, Pontis Transitions, DataSong, Return Path, RAPP, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.