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Apache Spark vs Oracle Application Development Framework 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 Java Frameworks
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (2nd), Compute Service (4th)
Oracle Application Developm...
Ranking in Java Frameworks
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Java Frameworks category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 8.4%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Application Development Framework is 4.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Java Frameworks Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Spark8.4%
Oracle Application Development Framework4.4%
Other87.2%
Java Frameworks
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Asad Ur Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Eases the writing of code in Java with JavaBeans; easy to set up
My advice to anyone who intends to use ADF for the first time is that you must make sure that you have powerful enough hardware in order to run everything smoothly, especially when it comes to JDeveloper. If your hardware is adequate, you can get by without a problem in terms of speed, but be advised that it can use a lot of resources. However, even though ADF is a good product with great scalability that has really helped me out in hard times since 2014, I would ultimately recommend that new users look toward Oracle APEX instead of ADF. I would rate Oracle Application Development Framework a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Spark can handle small to huge data and is suitable for any size of company."
"Provides a lot of good documentation compared to other solutions."
"We use Spark to process data from different data sources."
"DataFrame: Spark SQL gives the leverage to create applications more easily and with less coding effort."
"With Hadoop-related technologies, we can distribute the workload with multiple commodity hardware."
"The most significant advantage of Spark 3.0 is its support for DataFrame UDF Pandas UDF features."
"The product’s most valuable features are lazy evaluation and workload distribution."
"Spark helps us reduce startup time for our customers and gives a very high ROI in the medium term."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of integration with other Oracle products."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the business components."
"There are several valuable features. First is the fast deployment. Also the ease of use."
"The power of Oracle ADF is in the business components."
"The single sign-on features applied to Oracle Cloud is a valuable feature. All parts of this application are compatible with single sign-on, where you have a security feature that is very good in Oracle Cloud."
"The most valuable feature of the Oracle Application Development Framework is the rapid development and the security it provides."
"The best part of Oracle ADF is being able to easily write code in Java with JavaBean files."
"It's database-centric, and it's seemingly easy to use the model–view–controller pattern that's built-in."
 

Cons

"When you first start using this solution, it is common to run into memory errors when you are dealing with large amounts of data."
"They could improve the issues related to programming language for the platform."
"We've had problems using a Python process to try to access something in a large volume of data. It crashes if somebody gives me the wrong code because it cannot handle a large volume of data."
"The main concern is the overhead of Java when distributed processing is not necessary."
"The setup I worked on was really complex."
"There were some problems related to the product's compatibility with a few Python libraries."
"Apache Spark is very difficult to use. It would require a data engineer. It is not available for every engineer today because they need to understand the different concepts of Spark, which is very, very difficult and it is not easy to learn."
"It needs a new interface and a better way to get some data. In terms of writing our scripts, some processes could be faster."
"Oracle ADF needs more components and the layout can be improved."
"The performance of this solution needs to be improved because it is very slow."
"I use JDeveloper along with ADF and, unfortunately, JDeveloper is a very slow tool. It takes a lot of time to accomplish things with it during both development and deployment. I hope that Oracle will improve JDeveloper to make it run faster."
"You need to have Oracle ADF on-premises to build a big project. You need to have a dependable front-end application."
"The UI is very slow and not up to market standard."
"Lacks tailoring to geographic regional differences and consistent integration with third parties."
"The model layer could be improved for performance because once that part gets bloated, the performance is lacking. So, there is room for performance optimization."
"The application needs to be more lightweight and the performance improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Spark is an expensive solution."
"It is quite expensive. In fact, it accounts for almost 50% of the cost of our entire project."
"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."
"We are using the free version of the solution."
"Apache Spark is an open-source tool."
"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."
"It is an open-source solution, it is free of charge."
"We use a lot of Oracle products and in total, we pay about £5 million ($6.1 million USD) per year."
"The solution has an annual licensing cost and there are only standard fees. If you want Oracle support this is charged extra on top of the licensing fees."
"The cost of this solution is approximately $47,000 USD per site."
"We have yearly licensing costs."
"Oracle ADF is an expensive product. I don't know the actual figures, but our licensing costs for the year 2020, for example, were very high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

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?
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, ...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

No data available
Oracle ADF
 

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
Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) of Egypt, Red Samurai, ChB Jelly House
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. Oracle Application Development Framework and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,688 professionals have used our research since 2012.