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reviewer1488372 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Easy to use, reliable, and useful data validation
Pros and Cons
  • "Data validation and ease of use are the most valuable features."
  • "There should be better integration with other solutions."

What is our primary use case?

I am using this solution for data validation and writing queries.

What is most valuable?

Data validation and ease of use are the most valuable features.

What needs improvement?

There should be better integration with other solutions.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for approximately two years.

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Spark SQL
May 2025
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has been stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have found the solution to be scalable. We have 20 people using the solution in my organization and we plan to increase usage.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is open-sourced and free.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Spark SQL a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1427205 - PeerSpot reviewer
Corporate Sales at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It is stable, but its partitioning feature isn't that easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to gather all the transaction data. We have Hadoop and Spark in our system, and we use some easy process flows for transport. 

What is most valuable?

It is a stable solution. 

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two months.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is okay. We are a big organization. 

What other advice do I have?

Being a new user, I would rate Spark SQL a four out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Spark SQL
May 2025
Learn what your peers think about Spark SQL. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Cloud Team Leader at TCL
Real User
Enables us to build a data pipeline and has good performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The performance is one of the most important features. It has an API to process the data in a functional manner."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for building a data pipeline and data analytics. 

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

I would like to have the ability to process data without the overhead. To use the same API to process both terabytes data and be able to process one GB of data. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Spark SQL for around four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. I use it on and off. I use it mostly daily. 

How was the initial setup?

From an infrastructure perspective, it was easy for us to set up because we used some cloud services. But on-premise requires more setup. There is a learning curve. If you're not a programmer there is a learning curve. It requires more effort to learn more complex steps. 

I deployed it by myself. We use cloud so we are able to do it. 

The amount of people required for deployment will depend. One person is enough for AWS but not in other places. 

If you know how to do it, the deployment can be done in minutes. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Spark SQL a nine out of ten. 

My advice would be to read Databricks books about Spark. It's a good source of knowledge. 

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. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Analytics and Reporting Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
GUI could be improved. Useful for speedily processing big data.
Pros and Cons
  • "The speed of getting data."
  • "Anything to improve the GUI would be helpful."

What is our primary use case?

We do have some use cases, like analysis and risk-based use cases, that we've provided and prepared for companies in order to evaluate, but not many. The business units have so many things that we don't know how to help formulate into another tool and utilize as a use case. They also have so many requirements and costs.

I work for a financial institution, so every solution that they need to consider has to be on-premise.

I'm actually just evaluating and up scaling my skill sets with this solution right now.

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

Anything to improve the GUI would be helpful.

We have experienced a lot of issues, but nothing in the production environment.

For how long have I used the solution?

For a couple of months. However, we have not implemented in a production environment yet.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has not been implemented yet. When it is implemented into the real world and production, that is when I expect to see some challenges.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have worked with the Cloudera support for this solution. They are average.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have an experience with other database tools for the span of more than 10 years.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is a bit complex.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are also planning to use Informatica since there is a way in which you can use Spark in Informatica. You can use the Spark within Informatica because there is an an option to tie in a big data addition.

What other advice do I have?

We will have a lot of big data, which is why we need it. Otherwise, the solution is not needed. The solution really depends on the size of your data, its complexity, and the analysis that you are doing. Spark is good, but it is not mandatory.

Since I don't have experience in production with the solution, the best I can rate it now is a five (out of 10). 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
Data Analytics Practice head at bse
Real User
An excellent solution that continues to mature but needs graphing capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "Overall the solution is excellent."
  • "The solution needs to include graphing capabilities. Including financial charts would help improve everything overall."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution as our data warehouse. We use it for data science.

What is most valuable?

Overall the solution is excellent.

The solution is continuing to evolve and mature over time.

What needs improvement?

The service is complex. This is due to the fact that it's a combination of a lot of technology.

The solution needs to include graphing capabilities. Including financial charts would help improve everything overall.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution since 2013.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is relatively stable. We haven't had issues with bugs or glitches.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. We've found it easy to expand as necessary.

Right now, we have about 42 users on the solution. They include IT and ETL staff as well as a business analyst.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've never been in touch with technical support. I can't speak to any experience our company has had with them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've also worked with Apache SQL and SAP. This solution is a much more scalable and adventurous solution. It's also faster than the others. We used to use IQ, but at the time it couldn't scale well, so we switched to IBM Appliance. Then we switched to Spark. IBM was good, but it also had issues with scalability and it cost us a lot of money. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. We found it quite easy.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the implementation ourselves with our in-house team.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing of Apache is much more competitive than IBM.

What other advice do I have?

We use both the on-premises and cloud deployment models.

We have a relationship with Cloudera and use their distribution channels. We don't have a relationship with Apache.

Spark SQL is a good product. However, users need to have the capability of implementing the correct tools and efficiencies.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user986637 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager - Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
A good stable and scalable solution for processing big data
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability was fine. It behaved as expected."
  • "In the next release, maybe the visualization of some command-line features could be added."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use is to process big data. We were connecting into and we were applying sentiment analysis via hardware.

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two to three weeks.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability was fine. It behaved as expected.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is good.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support has been fine.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Apache Hadoop.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was fine. If somebody knows what to expect it's okay.

What other advice do I have?

We've just started using this solution. We were using it until recently on a research basis, just to measure the performance, the cost, and so on and so forth. Many things could be improved, but are okay up till now, I'm happy with. I would recommend the product.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
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Updated: May 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Spark SQL Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.