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Apache Spark Streaming vs Spring Cloud Data Flow 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
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Spring Cloud Data Flow
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Spark Streaming is 3.6%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spring Cloud Data Flow is 4.6%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Apache Spark Streaming3.6%
Spring Cloud Data Flow4.6%
Other91.8%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Himansu Jena - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient real-time data management and analysis with advanced features
There are various ways we can improve Apache Spark Streaming through best practices. The initial part requires attention to batch interval tuning, which helps small intervals in micro batches based on latency requirements and helps prevent back pressure. We can use data formats such as Parquet or ORC for storage that needs faster reads and leveraging feature predicate push-down optimizations. We can implement serialization which helps with any Kyro in terms of .NET or Java. We have boxing and unboxing serialization for XML and JSON for converting key-pair values stored in browser. We can also implement caching mechanisms for storing and recomputing multiple operations. We can use specified joins which help with smaller databases, and distributed joins can minimize users. We can implement project optimization memory for CPU efficiency, known as Tungsten. Additionally, load balancing, checkpointing, and schema evaluation are areas to consider based on performance and bottlenecks. We can use Bugzilla tools for tracking and Splunk to monitor the performance of process systems, utilization, and performance based on data frames or data sets.
Kaleeswaran Karuppusamy - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps retrieve data and with data processing but is not so easy to use
There are no stability issues in the tool. Compared to Apache Sling, Spring Cloud Data Flow is not easy to use. People prefer Apache Sling when dealing with their use cases. I don't know whether Spring Cloud Data Flow will be demanded a lot in the market because there are a lot of other options available, especially open-source tools like Apache Sling, which is getting a lot of attention from people. A lot of people have started using Apache Sling, so I don't know how much more visible Spring Cloud Data Flow will be in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main benefits of Apache Spark Streaming include cost savings, time savings, and efficiency improvements about data storage."
"The solution is very stable and reliable."
"Apache Spark Streaming has features like checkpointing and Streaming API that are useful."
"With Apache Spark Streaming's integration with Anaconda and Miniconda with Python, I interact with databases using data frames or data sets in micro versions and create solutions based on business expectations for decision-making, logistic regression, linear regression, or machine learning which provides image or voice record and graphical data for improved accuracy."
"With Apache Spark Streaming, you can have multiple kinds of windows; depending on your use case, you can select either a tumbling window, a sliding window, or a static window to determine how much data you want to process at a single point of time."
"For Apache Spark Streaming, the feature I appreciated most is that it provides live data delivery; additionally, it provides the capability to send a larger amount of data in parallel."
"The main benefits of Apache Spark Streaming include cost savings, time savings, and efficiency improvements about data storage."
"It's the fastest solution on the market with low latency data on data transformations."
"The dashboards in Spring Cloud Dataflow are quite valuable."
"The ease of deployment on Kubernetes, the seamless integration for orchestration of various pipelines, and the visual dashboard that simplifies operations even for non-specialists such as quality analysts."
"The most valuable feature is real-time streaming."
"The best thing I like about Spring Cloud Data Flow is its plug-and-play model."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it allows us to use different batch data sources, retrieve the data, and then do the data processing, after which we can convert and store it in the target."
"There are a lot of options in Spring Cloud. It's flexible in terms of how we can use it. It's a full infrastructure."
"The most valuable features of Spring Cloud Data Flow are the simple programming model, integration, dependency Injection, and ability to do any injection. Additionally, auto-configuration is another important feature because we don't have to configure the database and or set up the boilerplate in the database in every project. The composability is good, we can create small workloads and compose them in any way we like."
 

Cons

"Monitoring is an area where they could definitely improve Apache Spark Streaming. When you have a streaming application, it generates numerous logs. After some time, the logs become meaningless because they're quite large and impossible to open."
"We don't have enough experience to be judgmental about its flaws."
"The problem is we need to use it in a certain manner. After that, we need to apply another pipeline for the machine learning processes, and that's what we work on."
"There could be an improvement in the area of the user configuration section, it should be less developer-focused and more business user-focused."
"We would like to have the ability to do arbitrary stateful functions in Python."
"It was resource-intensive, even for small-scale applications."
"In terms of improvement, the UI could be better."
"When dealing with various data types including COBOL, Excel, JSON, video, audio, and MPG files, challenges can arise with incomplete or missing values."
"The configurations could be better. Some configurations are a little bit time-consuming in terms of trying to understand using the Spring Cloud documentation."
"I would improve the dashboard features as they are not very user-friendly."
"Spring Cloud Data Flow is not an easy-to-use tool, so improvements are required."
"On the tool's online discussion forums, you may get stuck with an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There were instances of deployment pipelines getting stuck, and the dashboard not always accurately showing the application status, requiring manual intervention such as rerunning applications or refreshing the dashboard."
"Some of the features, like the monitoring tools, are not very mature and are still evolving."
"Spring Cloud Data Flow could improve the user interface. We can drag and drop in the application for the configuration and settings, and deploy it right from the UI, without having to run a CI/CD pipeline. However, that does not work with Kubernetes, it only works when we are working with jars as the Spring Cloud Data Flow applications."
"The solution's community support could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Spark is an affordable solution, especially considering its open-source nature."
"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."
"People pay for Apache Spark Streaming as a service."
"I was using the open-source community version, which was self-hosted."
"If you want support from Spring Cloud Data Flow there is a fee. The Spring Framework is open-source and this is a free solution."
"The solution provides value for money, and we are currently using its community edition."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

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?
One of the improvements we need is in Spark SQL and the machine learning library. I don't think there is too much to work on, but the issue is when we want to use machine learning, we always need t...
What is your primary use case for Apache Spark Streaming?
We work with Apache Spark Streaming for our project because we use that as one of the landing data sources, and we work with it to ensure we can get all of the data before it goes through our data ...
What needs improvement with Spring Cloud Data Flow?
There were instances of deployment pipelines getting stuck, and the dashboard not always accurately showing the application status, requiring manual intervention such as rerunning applications or r...
What is your primary use case for Spring Cloud Data Flow?
We had a project for content management, which involved multiple applications each handling content ingestion, transformation, enrichment, and storage for different customers independently. We want...
What advice do you have for others considering Spring Cloud Data Flow?
I would definitely recommend Spring Cloud Data Flow. It requires minimal additional effort or time to understand how it works, and even non-specialists can use it effectively with its friendly docu...
 

Also Known As

Spark Streaming
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, eBay Inc.
Information Not Available
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