Apache Spark vs Spark SQL comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Apache Spark and Spark SQL are both solutions in the Hadoop category. Apache Spark is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Spark SQL is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0. Apache Spark holds a 14.4% mindshare in H, compared to Spark SQL’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Apache Spark users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Spark SQL users who would recommend it.

Apache Spark

Read 69 Apache Spark reviews

8,627 Views
3,623 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Spark SQL

Read 15 Spark SQL reviews

1,824 Views
1,623 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Apache Spark

Spark SQL

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Spark and Spark SQL 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. Spark SQL Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

November 2026

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Helped 920,574 peers since 2012

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

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compute Service (6th), Java Frameworks (2nd)

Spark SQL

Ranking in Hadoop

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Hadoop category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 14.4%, down from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spark SQL is 5.3%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hadoop Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Apache Spark	14.4%
Spark SQL	5.3%
Other	80.3%

Hadoop

Featured Reviews

Devindra Weerasooriya

Data Architect at Devtech

Provides a consistent framework for building data integration and access solutions with reliable performance

The in-memory computation feature is certainly helpful for my processing tasks. It is helpful because while using structures that could be held in memory rather than stored during the period of computation, I go for the in-memory option, though there are limitations related to holding it in memory that need to be addressed, but I have a preference for in-memory computation. The solution is beneficial in that it provides a base-level long-held understanding of the framework that is not variant day by day, which is very helpful in my prototyping activity as an architect trying to assess Apache Spark, Great Expectations, and Vault-based solutions versus those proposed by clients like TIBCO or Informatica.

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Kemal Duman

Team Lead, Data Engineering at Nesine.com

Data pipelines have run faster and support flexible batch and streaming transformations

We do not have any performance problems, but we do have some resource problems. Spark SQL consumes so many resources that we migrated our streaming job from Spark to Apache Flink. Resource management in Spark SQL should be better. It consumes more resources, which is normal. The main reason we switched from Spark is memory and CPU consumption. The major reason is the resource problem because the number of streaming jobs has been increasing in our company. That is why we considered resource management as a priority. Because of the resource consumption, I would say the development of Spark SQL is better. For development purposes, it is a top product and not difficult to work with, but resources are the major problem. We changed to Flink regardless of development time. Development time is less in Spark compared with Flink.

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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

"One of the key features is that Apache Spark is a distributed computing framework. You can help multiple slaves and distribute the workload between them."

"Having everything in the same framework has helped us out a lot."

"Spark Streaming, Spark SQL and MLib in that order."

"The product’s most valuable feature is the SQL tool. It enables us to create a database and publish it."

"I feel the streaming is its best feature."

"The most valuable feature of Apache Spark is its ease of use."

"The most crucial feature for us is the streaming capability. It serves as a fundamental aspect that allows us to exert control over our operations."

"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."

More Apache Spark pros

"I find the Thrift connection valuable."

"One of Spark SQL's most beautiful features is running parallel queries to go through enormous data."

"Spark SQL's efficiency in managing distributed data and its simplicity in expressing complex operations make it an essential part of our data pipeline."

"Overall the solution is excellent."

"The team members don't have to learn a new language and can implement complex tasks very easily using only SQL."

"The speed of getting data, as our TBs are big and it's a lot of data."

"The performance is one of the most important features, and it has an API to process the data in a functional manner."

"The speed of getting data."

More Spark SQL pros

Cons

"Apache Spark lacks geospatial data."

"There is complexity when it comes to understanding the whole ecosystem, especially for beginners."

"If you have a Spark session in the background, sometimes it's very hard to kill these sessions because of D allocation."

"Apache Spark provides very good performance The tuning phase is still tricky."

"Apache Spark could improve the connectors that it supports."

"I do not know exactly what was the reason to move away from Apache Spark or the underlying database system, but it was simply a decision driven by the customer."

"The migration of data between different versions could be improved."

"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."

More Apache Spark cons

"In the next update, we'd like to see better performance for small points of data. It is possible but there are better tools that are faster and cheaper."

"There should be better integration with other solutions."

"In the next release, maybe the visualization of some command-line features could be added."

"Being a new user, I am not able to find out how to partition it correctly. I probably need more information or knowledge. In other database solutions, you can easily optimize all partitions. I haven't found a quicker way to do that in Spark SQL. It would be good if you don't need a partition here, and the system automatically partitions in the best way. They can also provide more educational resources for new users."

"It would be useful if Spark SQL integrated with some data visualization tools."

"This solution could be improved by adding monitoring and integration for the EMR."

"SparkUI could have more advanced versions of the performance and the queries and all."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

More Spark SQL cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Considering the product version used in my company, I feel that the tool is not costly since the product is available for free."

"Apache Spark is an expensive solution."

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

"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."

"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."

"Apache Spark is an open-source tool."

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

More Apache Spark pricing and cost advice

"There is no license or subscription for this solution."

"The on-premise solution is quite expensive in terms of hardware, setting up the cluster, memory, hardware and resources. It depends on the use case, but in our case with a shared cluster which is quite large, it is quite expensive."

"We don't have to pay for licenses with this solution because we are working in a small market, and we rely on open-source because the budgets of projects are very small."

"The solution is bundled with Palantir Foundry at no extra charge."

"The solution is open-sourced and free."

"We use the open-source version, so we do not have direct support from Apache."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	33

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

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?

I find that there really lacks the technical depth to do any recommendations for future updates of Apache Spark. I used it for two years for our prototype work and testing things, but because I had...

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What is your primary use case for Apache Spark?

I attempted to use Apache Spark in one of our customer projects, but after the initial test, our customer moved to another technology and another database system. I do not have any final remarks on...

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What needs improvement with Spark SQL?

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What is your primary use case for Spark SQL?

Spark SQL has been in our stack for less than one year, though some of our colleagues are using it. It is a useful product for transformation jobs. We generally use Spark SQL for batch processing. ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Spark SQL?

Regarding the Catalyst query optimizer, I think we are using it. We were using it in the past, but I am not certain if we use it now. We used it a long time ago. I rate my experience with Spark SQL...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

AWS Lambda vs Apache Spark

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon EC2 vs Apache Spark

Compared 6% of the time

Apache NiFi vs Apache Spark

Compared 5% of the time

Spot by Flexera vs Apache Spark

Compared 4% of the time

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Amazon EMR vs Spark SQL

Compared 21% of the time

IBM Db2 Big SQL vs Spark SQL

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Data Fabric vs Spark SQL

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Netezza Performance Server vs Spark SQL

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Analytics Engine vs Spark SQL

Compared 6% of the time

More Spark SQL Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark

October 2026

Download Apache Spark product report

Buyer's Guide

Spark SQL

October 2026

Download Spark SQL product report

Overview

Apache Spark is a leading open-source processing tool known for scalability and speed in managing large datasets. It supports both real-time and batch processing and is widely used for building data pipelines, machine learning applications, and analytics.

Apache Spark's strengths lie in its ability to process large data volumes efficiently through real-time and batch capabilities. With in-memory computation, it ensures fast data processing and significant performance gains. Its wide range of APIs, including those for machine learning, SQL, and analytics, make it versatile in handling complex data operations. While popular for ease of use and fault tolerance, Spark's management, debugging, and user-friendliness could benefit from improvements. Better GUIs, integration with BI tools, and enhanced monitoring are desired, alongside shuffling optimization and compatibility with more programming languages.

What are Apache Spark's key features?

Scalability: Efficiently manages large datasets across nodes.
Performance: In-memory computation for faster data processing.
Real-time Processing: Supports real-time analytics and data streaming.
APIs: Offers extensive APIs for machine learning, SQL, and analytics.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Simplifies complex data tasks through intuitive operations.
Fault Tolerance: Ensures data reliability and continuous operations.
Integration Flexibility: Easily integrates with big data platforms and tools.

Organizations use Apache Spark predominantly for in-memory data processing, enabling seamless integration with big data frameworks. It's applied in security analytics, predictive modeling, and helps facilitate secure data transmissions in AI deployments. Industries leverage Spark's speed for sentiment analysis, data integration, and efficient ETL transformations.

Apache

Spark SQL leverages SQL capabilities to process large datasets, offering high performance, seamless integration with Spark programs, and the ability to run parallel queries. It supports Hive interoperability and facilitates data transformation with DataFrames and Datasets.

Spark SQL enables efficient data engineering, transformation, and analytics for organizations dealing with large-scale data processing. It supports big data queries, builds data pipelines and warehouses, and interfaces with various databases, especially in distributed settings such as Hadoop and Azure. Users employ Spark SQL to establish business logic in Jupyter notebooks and facilitate data loading into SQL Server, enabling analytics with tools like Power BI. The documentation and flexibility to manage extensive data processing are valued by users, although a steep learning curve and documentation clarity are noted challenges. Enhancements for data visualization, GUI, and resource management alongside better integration with tools like Tableau are recommended.

What are the key features of Spark SQL?

Query Language: Supports complex SQL queries for effective large dataset processing.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates into Spark programs, boosting performance and speed.
Parallel Queries: Capable of running numerous queries in parallel to enhance processing efficiency.
Interoperability with Hive: Facilitates interaction within distributed data ecosystems efficiently.
Data Transformation: Utilizes DataFrames and Datasets for flexible data manipulation.

What benefits or ROI should users consider in reviews?

Performance: Offers high-speed data processing for demanding workloads.
Scalability: Efficiently handles increasing data volumes and processing demands.
Ease of Use: Facilitates simpler SQL-based data management operations.
Flexibility: Adapts to various data sources and formats for broad usability.

In industries, Spark SQL is a critical part of data engineering, transformation, and analytics. It empowers organizations to manage big data processing and analytics in sectors like finance, healthcare, and telecommunications. By enabling seamless data pipeline creation, it supports real-time business decision-making processes and data-driven strategies across sectors.

Apache

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

UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, Hitachi Solutions

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

November 2026

Free Report: Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.

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