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Apache Spark vs SAP HANA 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Apache Spark reduces operational costs by up to 50%, offering high ROI and efficient performance despite infrastructure expenses.
Sentiment score
6.6
Companies have mixed experiences with SAP HANA, benefiting from efficiency but facing potential unforeseen costs and integration challenges.
We do not feel we're getting value for the investment due to the additional resources needed for integration and maintenance.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Apache Spark support ranges from vibrant community help to paid vendor plans, with experiences varying based on user needs.
Sentiment score
6.1
SAP HANA support is generally positive but needs improvements in response times and issue prioritization, varying by user experience.
The community support is better than the official SAP support.
While issues are resolved eventually, the first level of support is not as good as we would like.
We often do not know when our ticket will be handled or who is handling it, and we can wait from one to four days for a reply, which is unexpected.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Apache Spark is scalable, efficiently manages large workloads, and is praised for stability, adaptability, and expansive capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.9
SAP HANA is praised for its scalable, adaptable infrastructure, efficiently managing large-scale deployments despite potential speed impacts.
Our operations have grown from a hundred data operations a day to as many in a couple of seconds.
The scalability rating is based on the ability to expand.
There is enough scalability offered by SAP to meet our deployment needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Apache Spark is stable and reliable, with improved versions addressing issues, widely used by major tech companies.
Sentiment score
7.9
SAP HANA is highly stable and reliable, with ongoing updates improving performance and most users rating its stability highly.
We recently faced customer data loss during the cluster handover or failover fallback.
We have not had any problems in the last seven to eight years.
Regarding stability, they are using legacy systems and have implemented SAP HANA.
 

Room For Improvement

SAP HANA is criticized for high cost, integration challenges, cumbersome interface, complex setup, and need for better customization.
Many customers still prefer Oracle, possibly due to cost or familiarity, despite SAP mandating that they have to go to SAP HANA.
The main issue is the ecosystem, which lacks the widespread support that SQL enjoys.
The setup process and deployment process for SAP HANA is complex.
 

Setup Cost

SAP HANA is costly, especially on-premise, but cloud deployment offers a more affordable option for smaller businesses.
It's a recurring subscription model, which is expensive compared to legacy systems with just a maintenance fee.
SAP is not a cheap company, and its licenses are expensive.
I would rate the price for SAP HANA as high.
 

Valuable Features

SAP HANA's in-memory computing offers fast data processing, seamless integration, robust security, and efficient analytics for enhanced database management.
It allows some tables to be stored in a column base, others in a row base, and the In-Memory functionalities are mostly the highlight of SAP HANA, especially compared to disk-based memory users.
One of our dashboards using Excelsius was previously developed on normal BW on Oracle data, which took 10 minutes to open. After developing the same calculation views using those tables and replacing them with calculation views in Excelsius, the dashboard opened in seconds.
The concept enhances speed, allowing the database to serve and move data quickly.
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Spark
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Compute Service (4th), Java Frameworks (2nd)
SAP HANA
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Embedded Database (4th), Relational Databases Tools (3rd)
 

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.
Dhiraj Jankar - PeerSpot reviewer
Users appreciate the mix of in-memory architecture and ease of backend management
The most valuable SAP HANA features are that, compared to Oracle, there is less administrative work and less complex work to handle, making it very straightforward. The tool itself takes care of the backend work. The main benefits SAP HANA provides to users include its architecture, which combines both column store and row store capabilities. Some places find the row feature important, whereas others find column store important. It allows some tables to be stored in a column base, others in a row base, and the In-Memory functionalities are mostly the highlight of SAP HANA, especially compared to disk-based memory users. This was the main reason SAP HANA was introduced initially.
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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%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
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 are the biggest benefits of using SAP HANA?
Based on my work with SAP HANA, the biggest benefit that it can bring to your business is total data management. This product is by SAP - a company that serves almost all needs a client may have co...
Is SAP HANA’s customer and technical support reliable?
We have been using SAP HANA for a fairly short period of time and have only taken advantage of their customer support. So far, we have not had issues that required specialized help from technical s...
Is SAP HANA difficult to set up and start using?
SAP HANA is fairly easy to set up, however, I do not think a complete beginner can do it. You certainly need some preparation - either you need to have experience with similar solutions, or with ot...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
 

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
Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. SAP HANA and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,579 professionals have used our research since 2012.