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Apache Spark Streaming vs Azure Stream Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Streaming
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure Stream Analytics
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Spark Streaming is 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Stream Analytics is 12.4%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

AbhishekGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy integration, beneficial auto-scaling, and good open-sourced support community
The service structure of Apache Spark Streaming can improve. There are a lot of issues with memory management and latency. There is no real-time analytics. We recommend it for the use cases where there is a five-second latency, but not for a millisecond, an IOT-based, or the detection anomaly-based. Flink as a service is much better. Apache Spark Streaming does not have auto-tuning. A customer needs to invest a lot, in terms of management and maintenance.
Sudhendra Umarji - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up and user-friendly, but could be priced better
I haven't come across missing items. It does what I need it to do. The pricing is a little bit high. The UI should be a little bit better from a usability perspective. The endpoint, if you are outsourcing to a third party, should have easier APIs. I'd like to have more destination sources available to us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apache Spark Streaming's most valuable feature is near real-time analytics. The developers can build APIs easily for a code-steaming pipeline. The solutions have an ecosystem of integration with other stock services."
"It's the fastest solution on the market with low latency data on data transformations."
"The platform’s most valuable feature for processing real-time data is its ability to handle continuous data streams."
"Spark Streaming is critical, quite stable, full-featured, and scalable."
"Apache Spark's capabilities for machine learning are quite extensive and can be used in a low-code way."
"As an open-source solution, using it is basically free."
"The solution is very stable and reliable."
"The solution is better than average and some of the valuable features include efficiency and stability."
"The most valuable features of Azure Stream Analytics are the ease of provisioning and the interface is not terribly complex."
"I appreciate this solution because it leverages open-source technologies. It allows us to utilize the latest streaming solutions and it's easy to develop."
"The most valuable features are the IoT hub and the Blob storage."
"Provides deep integration with other Azure resources."
"The most valuable aspect is the SQL option that Azure Stream Analytics provides."
"We use Azure Stream Analytics for simulation and internal activities."
"The solution has a lot of functionality that can be pushed out to companies."
"The way it organizes data into tables and dashboards is very helpful."
 

Cons

"There could be an improvement in the area of the user configuration section, it should be less developer-focused and more business user-focused."
"In terms of improvement, the UI could be better."
"The service structure of Apache Spark Streaming can improve. There are a lot of issues with memory management and latency. There is no real-time analytics. We recommend it for the use cases where there is a five-second latency, but not for a millisecond, an IOT-based, or the detection anomaly-based. Flink as a service is much better."
"We would like to have the ability to do arbitrary stateful functions in Python."
"The debugging aspect could use some improvement."
"We don't have enough experience to be judgmental about its flaws."
"The initial setup is quite complex."
"The cost and load-related optimizations are areas where the tool lacks and needs improvement."
"The only challenge was that the streaming analytics area in Azure Stream Analytics could not meet our company's expectations, making it a component where improvements are required."
"If something goes wrong, it's very hard to investigate what caused it and why."
"The UI should be a little bit better from a usability perspective."
"Its features for event imports and architecture could be enhanced."
"It is not complex, but it requires some development skills. When the data is sent from Azure Stream Analytics to Power BI, I don't have the access to modify the data. I can't customize or edit the data or do some queries. All queries need to be done in the Azure Stream Analytics."
"The solution’s customer support could be improved."
"Azure Stream Analytics is challenging to customize because it's not very flexible."
"The solution doesn't handle large data packets very efficiently, which could be improved upon."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Spark is an affordable solution, especially considering its open-source nature."
"People pay for Apache Spark Streaming as a service."
"I was using the open-source community version, which was self-hosted."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive, or not cost-effective, and ten is cheap, I rate the price a seven."
"The licensing for this product is payable on a 'pay as you go' basis. This means that the cost is only based on data volume, and the frequency that the solution is used."
"The product's price is at par with the other solutions provided by the other cloud service providers in the market."
"We pay approximately $500,000 a year. It's approximately $10,000 a year per license."
"There are different tiers based on retention policies. There are four tiers. The pricing varies based on steaming units and tiers. The standard pricing is $10/hour."
"The cost of this solution is less than competitors such as Amazon or Google Cloud."
"When scaling up, the pricing for Azure Stream Analytics can get relatively high. Considering its capabilities compared to other solutions, I would rate it a seven out of ten for cost. However, we've found ways to optimize costs using tools like Databricks for specific tasks."
"The current price is substantial."
"I rate the price of Azure Stream Analytics a four out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
6%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Spark Streaming?
Apache Spark Streaming is versatile. You can use it for competitive intelligence, gathering data from competitors, or for internal tasks like monitoring workflows.
What needs improvement with Apache Spark Streaming?
We don't have enough experience to be judgmental about its flaws, as we've only used stable features like batch micro-batch. Integration poses no problem; however, I don't use some features and can...
What is your primary use case for Apache Spark Streaming?
We use Spark Streaming in a micro-batch region. It's not a full real-time system, but it offers high performance and low latency.
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stream Analytics?
Stream Analytics is cheaper, especially for small-scale requirements or telemetry needs. However, for enterprise-level data handling, structured streaming with Databricks might be more cost-effecti...
What needs improvement with Azure Stream Analytics?
More flexibility in terms of writing queries and accommodating additional facilities would be beneficial. The complexity of handling messages that need decoding and contain different characters sho...
 

Also Known As

Spark Streaming
ASA
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, eBay Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Milliman, Honeywell Building Solutions, Arcoflex Automation Solutions, Real Madrid C.F., Aerocrine, Ziosk, Tacoma Public Schools, P97 Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark Streaming vs. Azure Stream Analytics and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.