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Amazon Virtual Private Cloud vs Apache Spark 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

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
Ranking in Compute Service
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Spark
Ranking in Compute Service
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Java Frameworks (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon Virtual Private Cloud is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Spark is 11.2%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Dineshkumar Thulasiraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers auto-scaling policies, security groups are very useful and good support
VPC itself is pretty good, but understanding it well is key. One of the challenges for beginners is understanding IP address ranges and subnet concepts. For example, why use a /16 CIDR block for a VPC versus a /24? It's important to understand these concepts before creating a VPC. Once you understand the basics, you can leverage VPC features based on your architecture. For example, a three-tier architecture (web application, database, etc.) can benefit from public and private subnets. The web application can reside in a public subnet for internet access, while the database can reside in a private subnet for security, only accessible through the web application. This helps isolate resources and improve performance. So, the first step is understanding VPC creation and then using subnets (public and private) based on your architecture. Public subnets can connect to the internet, while private subnets cannot by default. For internet access in a private subnet, you can use a NAT Gateway and route tables. Other components include the internet gateway (for public subnet internet access), Elastic IPs (static IP addresses), and more advanced options like VPN connections, AWS PrivateLink, etc. Once you grasp these basic concepts, you can explore the more advanced features.
Ilya Afanasyev - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable, able to expand, and handle large amounts of data well
We use batch processing. It works well with our formats and file versions. There's a lot of functionality. In our pipeline each hour, we make a copy of data from MongoDB, of the changes from MongoDB to some specific file. Each time pipeline copied all of the data, it would do it each time without changes to all of the tables. Tables have a lot of data, and in the last MongoDB version, there is a possibility to read only changed data. This reduced the cost and configuration of the cluster, and we saved about $150,000. The solution is scalable. It's a stable product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The documentation is very clear."
"The product is flexible and easy to use."
"Compared to that of on-premises solutions, the performance of Amazon Virtual Private Cloud is much better."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"You can get a direct link to AWS to your data even if you are a large organization with a huge data center."
"Subnet is an important feature as it helps to save network and route traffic."
"The solution is secure."
"It is a good solution."
"We use Spark to process data from different data sources."
"I like Apache Spark's flexibility the most. Before, we had one server that would choke up. With the solution, we can easily add more nodes when needed. The machine learning models are also really helpful. We use them to predict energy theft and find infrastructure problems."
"There's a lot of functionality."
"The most valuable feature is the Fault Tolerance and easy binding with other processes like Machine Learning, graph analytics."
"I feel the streaming is its best feature."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Spark is its flexibility."
"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."
"The main feature that we find valuable is that it is very fast."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to add step-by-step tutorials for its services."
"There are some differences in the route tables between public and private subnets, which is something that is not properly documented."
"The solution has to be more robust and scalable."
"There is a specific configuration where I was using a Windows Server, and I could not configure RDS Oracle on it."
"From an improvement perspective, the product's initial setup phase should be easy for those who are not experienced in creating VPCs."
"There is always room for improvement. It can be in support."
"The tool needs to improve its stability and support which should be faster. The product's pricing is also expensive. When we scale up, we have to pay more."
"The solution could improve its price."
"When you want to extract data from your HDFS and other sources then it is kind of tricky because you have to connect with those sources."
"The graphical user interface (UI) could be a bit more clear. It's very hard to figure out the execution logs and understand how long it takes to send everything. If an execution is lost, it's not so easy to understand why or where it went. I have to manually drill down on the data processes which takes a lot of time. Maybe there could be like a metrics monitor, or maybe the whole log analysis could be improved to make it easier to understand and navigate."
"It would be beneficial to enhance Spark's capabilities by incorporating models that utilize features not traditionally present in its framework."
"I would like to see integration with data science platforms to optimize the processing capability for these tasks."
"When you are working with large, complex tasks, the garbage collection process is slow and affects performance."
"Dynamic DataFrame options are not yet available."
"In data analysis, you need to take real-time data from different data sources. You need to process this in a subsecond, do the transformation in a subsecond, and all that."
"Apart from the restrictions that come with its in-memory implementation. It has been improved significantly up to version 3.0, which is currently in use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not very expensive."
"It is a free-to-use service."
"VPC tends to offer competitive pricing compared to other services."
"The product is expensive."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The solution is pricey but worth its money."
"We can use the tool for free."
"VPC itself is free to create and use."
"Spark is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Apache Spark is not too cheap. You have to pay for hardware and Cloudera licenses. Of course, there is a solution with open source without Cloudera."
"It is quite expensive. In fact, it accounts for almost 50% of the cost of our entire project."
"They provide an open-source license for the on-premise version."
"Since we are using the Apache Spark version, not the data bricks version, it is an Apache license version, the support and resolution of the bug are actually late or delayed. The Apache license is free."
"Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud?
The cost of Amazon VPC depends on the components you put inside the VPC and the traffic volume. While the direct cost of the VPC is usually not problematic, the associated components and their traf...
What needs improvement with Amazon Virtual Private Cloud?
I would look at database options for improvements. There is a specific configuration where I was using a Windows Server, and I could not configure RDS Oracle on it. I believe they need to revise ho...
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?
Compared to other solutions like Doc DB, Spark is more costly due to the need for extensive infrastructure. It requires significant investment in infrastructure, which can be expensive. While cloud...
What needs improvement with Apache Spark?
The Spark solution could improve in scheduling tasks and managing dependencies. Spark alone cannot handle sequential tasks, requiring environments like Airflow scheduler or scripts. For instance, o...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Amazon VPC
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hess, Expedia, Kelloggs, Philips, HyperTrack
NASA JPL, UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, UC Santa Cruz, TripAdvisor, Taboola, Agile Lab, Art.com, Baidu, Alibaba Taobao, EURECOM, Hitachi Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Virtual Private Cloud vs. Apache Spark and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.