Apache Spark vs IBM Spectrum Computing comparison

Apache and IBM are both solutions in the Hadoop category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while IBM is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0. Apache holds a 19.0% mindshare in H, compared to IBM’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 57% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Apache Spark

Read 67 Apache Spark reviews

3,754 Views
788 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Computing

Read 9 IBM Spectrum Computing reviews

528 Views
111 Comparison Views

57% willing to recommend

Apache Spark

IBM Spectrum Computing

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Spark and IBM Spectrum Computing based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Hadoop solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Spark vs. IBM Spectrum Computing Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

September 2025

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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

Apache Spark

Ranking in Hadoop

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compute Service (4th), Java Frameworks (2nd)

IBM Spectrum Computing

Ranking in Hadoop

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (25th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Hadoop category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 19.0%, up from 18.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Computing is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hadoop Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Apache Spark	19.0%
IBM Spectrum Computing	2.1%
Other	78.9%

Hadoop

Featured Reviews

Omar Khaled

Data Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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OmarIsmail1

Infrastructure Technical Specialist II at Clicks Group

Senior Technical Specialist appreciates intelligent workload management, strong support, and scalability

The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products. The software is solid, meaning that the code is stable. They take business seriously, which is what IBM stands for - International Business Machines. They always maintain a business-oriented approach in their software development. It's not simply clicking through interfaces; in IBM software, they consider their actions, process flows, and workflows around business processes. It requires understanding IBM and their methodology, as the software operates accordingly. I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature. We use Insights, which is connected to the cloud. This provides AI capabilities for analyzing the configuration, offering smart recommendations on new code, warning about bugs in current code, and suggesting configuration improvements through its advisor tool. The predictive analytics feature in IBM Spectrum Computing enables optimal software performance through Insights. However, being a storage administrator requires foundational knowledge and understanding beyond these tools. For troubleshooting, it's efficient in spotting bottlenecks, but understanding the terms and metrics is essential as it provides answers that need interpretation.

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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 is highly scalable, allowing you to efficiently work with extensive datasets that might be problematic to handle using traditional tools that are memory-constrained."

"It provides a scalable machine learning library."

"Its scalability and speed are very valuable. You can scale it a lot. It is a great technology for big data. It is definitely better than a lot of earlier warehouse or pipeline solutions, such as Informatica. Spark SQL is very compliant with normal SQL that we have been using over the years. This makes it easy to code in Spark. It is just like using normal SQL. You can use the APIs of Spark or you can directly write SQL code and run it. This is something that I feel is useful in Spark."

"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 main feature that we find valuable is that it is very fast."

"There's a lot of functionality."

"Apache Spark is known for its ease of use. Compared to other available data processing frameworks, it is user-friendly."

"Features include machine learning, real time streaming, and data processing."

More Apache Spark pros

"Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis."

"Easy to operate and use."

"The most valuable feature is the backup capability."

"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"

"The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products."

"The most valuable aspect of the product is the policy driving resource management, to optimize the computing across data centers."

"The comparison was challenging, but the IBM Spectrum Scale offered a balanced solution. Our engineers rated itsanalytics capabilities equally high as Pure Storage. For workload management, Spectrum Computing provided effective solutions that met our needs. Workload management is part of a complete solution that uses different tools. There were the cloud and HPC parts; within HPC, there were parts like liquid cooling, simple computing, storage, and orchestration. The orchestration team handled the workload management."

"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."

More IBM Spectrum Computing pros

Cons

"Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved."

"Stream processing needs to be developed more in Spark. I have used Flink previously. Flink is better than Spark at stream processing."

"When using Spark, users may need to write their own parallelization logic, which requires additional effort and expertise."

"Apache Spark could improve the connectors that it supports. There are a lot of open-source databases in the market. For example, cloud databases, such as Redshift, Snowflake, and Synapse. Apache Spark should have connectors present to connect to these databases. There are a lot of workarounds required to connect to those databases, but it should have inbuilt connectors."

"Apache Spark can improve the use case scenarios from the website. There is not any information on how you can use the solution across the relational databases toward multiple databases."

"The product could improve the user interface and make it easier for new users."

"Technical expertise from an engineer is required to deploy and run high-tech tools, like Informatica, on Apache Spark, making it an area where improvements are required to make the process easier for users."

"The graphical user interface (UI) could be a bit more clear. It's very hard to figure out the execution logs and understand how long it takes to send everything. If an execution is lost, it's not so easy to understand why or where it went. I have to manually drill down on the data processes which takes a lot of time. Maybe there could be like a metrics monitor, or maybe the whole log analysis could be improved to make it easier to understand and navigate."

More Apache Spark cons

"This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly."

"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."

"IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging."

"The deduplication software isn't quite up to speed with the market. While IBM has excellent compression technology, specifically on their FlashCore modules, they lag behind competitors such as NetApp in deduplication capabilities."

"The deduplication software isn't quite up to speed with the market."

"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."

"SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing."

"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."

More IBM Spectrum Computing cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since we are using the Apache Spark version, not the data bricks version, it is an Apache license version, the support and resolution of the bug are actually late or delayed. The Apache license is free."

"Apache Spark is an open-source solution, and there is no cost involved in deploying the solution on-premises."

"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."

"It is an open-source platform. We do not pay for its subscription."

"We are using the free version of the solution."

"It is an open-source solution, it is free of charge."

"Apache Spark is an open-source tool."

"On the cloud model can be expensive as it requires substantial resources for implementation, covering on-premises hardware, memory, and licensing."

More Apache Spark pricing and cost advice

"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."

"This solution is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	32

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Spark?

We use Spark to process data from different data sources.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Spark?

Apache Spark is open-source, so it doesn't incur any charges.

See all answers

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, ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Computing?

IBM Spectrum Computing consistently offers competitive pricing. When solutioning new implementations, IBM always presents the best solution and price. In a recent comparison with Pure Storage and N...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Computing?

IBM Spectrum Computing had limitations with remote copy services between head office and disaster recovery sites. In the last year, IBM has improved the code by re-engineering it to policy-based re...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Computing?

The typical use case for IBM Spectrum Computing is that it's an all-rounder. It can be used in various scenarios, such as the retailer I work for that has batch processing. It's on-demand when perf...

See all answers

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Apache Spark

September 2025

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Also Known As

No data available

IBM Platform Computing

Overview

Spark provides programmers with an application programming interface centered on a data structure called the resilient distributed dataset (RDD), a read-only multiset of data items distributed over a cluster of machines, that is maintained in a fault-tolerant way. It was developed in response to limitations in the MapReduce cluster computing paradigm, which forces a particular linear dataflowstructure on distributed programs: MapReduce programs read input data from disk, map a function across the data, reduce the results of the map, and store reduction results on disk. Spark's RDDs function as a working set for distributed programs that offers a (deliberately) restricted form of distributed shared memory

Apache

IBM Spectrum Computing uses intelligent workload and policy-driven resource management to optimize resources across the data center, on premises and in the cloud. Now up to 150X faster and scalable to over 160,000 cores, IBM provides you with the latest advances in software-defined infrastructure to help you unleash the power of your distributed mission-critical high performance computing (HPC), analytics and big data applications as well as a new generation open source frameworks such as Hadoop and Spark.

IBM

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

London South Bank University, Transvalor, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Genomic

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

September 2025

Free Report: Apache Spark vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. IBM Spectrum Computing and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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