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Apache Spark vs Spring Boot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
69
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Compute Service (6th)
Spring Boot
Ranking in Java Frameworks
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Java Frameworks category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 11.2%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spring Boot is 29.2%, down from 40.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Java Frameworks Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Spring Boot29.2%
Apache Spark11.2%
Other59.6%
Java Frameworks
 

Q&A Highlights

MT
Works at Verizon
Aug 28, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

Devindra Weerasooriya - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2759913 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software Developer at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Has improved application monitoring and supports modular development with built-in configuration features
Spring Boot has many valuable features. First, it requires less coding and less configuration. The configurations are already in-built. The security features in Spring Boot are in-built, so we don't need to use any external third-party applications for security. In Spring Boot, the robust configuration capabilities help in adapting to diverse deployment scenarios because there is a minimum configuration required for developing any applications. The auto-configuration feature is available in Spring Boot. When we start any application, there is a property file where we mention the keys, securities, DB connections, and all other configurations. When we start any application, it loads the application properties first, which include the credentials and security files. I am using Spring Boot starter projects. I assess Spring Boot's auto-configuration feature as highly efficient in managing application setup. The application.properties file allows us to specify the server settings, such as the port we want to start the server on. For example, the default is 8080, but we can configure it to 8081. Additionally, we can store connection details such as the driver class, data source URL, username, and password in the application.properties file.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It allows the loading and investigation of very lard data sets, has MLlib for machine learning, Spark streaming, and both the new and old dataframe API."
"This solution provides a clear and convenient syntax for our analytical tasks."
"The processing time is very much improved over the data warehouse solution that we were using."
"We have built a product called NetBot where we take any form of data, such as large email data, images, videos, or transactional data, and transform unstructured textual and video data into structured transactional data to create an enterprise-wide smart data grid that is then used by downstream analytics tools."
"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."
"It is useful for handling large amounts of data, and it is very useful for scientific purposes."
"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."
"ETL and streaming capabilities."
"Anything which is to do with enterprise scale, as far as Java is concerned, Spring Boot has all the best practices factored in."
"The setup is straightforward."
"Spring Boot facilitates the use of Java which is open source. We use Github and other libraries that are available which assist in the building we need to do."
"Someone in any position can use this technology because there is very little code but gives you maximum output."
"Spring Boot is much easier when it comes to the configuration, setup, installation, and deployment of your applications, compared to any kind of MVC framework. It has everything within a single framework."
"Spring Boot is much easier when it comes to the configuration, setup, installation, and deployment of your applications, compared to any kind of MVC framework."
"This is a pretty light solution. It's not too heavy."
"The community surrounding Spring Boot is really good. If you face any issue with Spring Boot, you will get the answer from the community."
 

Cons

"We use big data manager but we cannot use it as conditional data so whenever we're trying to fetch the data, it takes a bit of time."
"There were some problems related to the product's compatibility with a few Python libraries."
"The setup I worked on was really complex."
"The solution needs to optimize shuffling between workers."
"The solution needs to optimize shuffling between workers."
"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."
"Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved."
"The solution must improve its performance."
"Spring Boot is very mature and developer-friendly, though it abstracts a lot of complexity, which can make it difficult for a developer to fully understand what is happening in the background."
"The current state of Spring Boot's cloud layer requires further development, especially for collecting Java functions for cloud platforms like GCP Cloudground. Having to write every single API request in a single class can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task that is not ideal for Java developers. Additionally, having all API calls in one class and making it the main class presents problems with package visibility. Therefore, there is much room for improvement in the Spring Cloud area."
"The product could be improved by supporting and integrating Hadoop."
"Spring Boot could improve the interface, error handling, and integration performance."
"The security could be simplified."
"This solution could be improved if there were more libraries available."
"Having to restart the application to reload properties."
"Perhaps an even lighter-weight, leaner version could be made available, to compete with alternative solutions, such as NodeJS."
 

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."
"Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera."
"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 an expensive solution."
"Apache Spark is an open-source tool."
"The solution is affordable and there are no additional licensing costs."
"On the cloud model can be expensive as it requires substantial resources for implementation, covering on-premises hardware, memory, and licensing."
"It's an open-source solution."
"Spring Boot is open source. It's a free tool and free framework."
"I am using a free version of Spring Boot."
"This is an open source solution."
"If you want support there is paid enterprise version with support available."
"Spring Boot is open source."
"I use the free version of Spring Boot."
"Spring Boot is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
 

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.
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...
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...
What do you like most about Spring Boot?
1. Open Source2. Excellent Community Support -- Widely used across different projects -- so your search for answers would be easy and almost certain.3. Extendable Stack with a wide array of availab...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Eclipse MicroProfile?
Springboot is a Java-based solution that is very popular and easy to use. You can use it to build applications quickly and confidently. Springboot has a very large, helpful learning community, whic...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Jakarta EE?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Spring Boot or Jakarta EE application creation software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Spring Boot. Spring Boot offe...
 

Comparisons

 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. Spring Boot and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.