Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS Fargate vs Apache Spark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Spark
Ranking in Compute Service
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Java Frameworks (2nd)
AWS Fargate
Ranking in Compute Service
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 11.1%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Fargate is 16.0%, up from 15.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

SurjitChoudhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers batch processing of data and in-memory processing in Spark greatly enhances performance
Spark supports real-time data processing through Spark Streaming. It allows for batch processing of data. If you have immediate data, like chat information, that needs to be processed in real-time, Spark Streaming is used. For data that can be evaluated later, batch processing with Apache Spark is suitable. Mostly, batch processing is utilized in our organization, but for streaming data processing, tools like Kafka are often integrated. In-memory processing in Spark greatly enhances performance, making it a hundred times faster than the previous MapReduce methods. This improvement is achieved through optimization techniques like caching, broadcasting, and partitioning, which help in optimizing queries for faster processing.
Subrata Mukherjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Boost demand response with cost-efficient serverless architecture
We are a venture builder company, and if we select AWS for our product. Our design is based on a serverless architecture model. ECS Fargate is the most convenient way in terms of scalability, integration, and cost control Thanks to the serverless model and easy integration features, a few…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its scalability and speed are very valuable. You can scale it a lot. It is a great technology for big data. It is definitely better than a lot of earlier warehouse or pipeline solutions, such as Informatica. Spark SQL is very compliant with normal SQL that we have been using over the years. This makes it easy to code in Spark. It is just like using normal SQL. You can use the APIs of Spark or you can directly write SQL code and run it. This is something that I feel is useful in Spark."
"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."
"The features we find most valuable are the machine learning, data learning, and Spark Analytics."
"The most valuable feature is the Fault Tolerance and easy binding with other processes like Machine Learning, graph analytics."
"I like that it can handle multiple tasks parallelly. I also like the automation feature. JavaScript also helps with the parallel streaming of the library."
"The solution is scalable."
"The distribution of tasks, like the seamless map-reduce functionality, is quite impressive."
"I feel the streaming is its best feature."
"Fargate itself is a stable product. We are quite satisfied with its performance."
"AWS Fargate has many valuable services. It does the job with minimal trouble. It's very observable. You can see what's going on and you have logs. You have everything. You can troubleshoot it. It's affordable and it's flexible."
"We appreciate the simple use of containers within this solution, it makes managing the containers quick and easy."
"It allows for focusing on applications instead of managing infrastructure."
"By using a server's compute resources, one can observe the resource metrics. With AWS, one can determine when servers will be used based on CloudWatch results. For example, CloudWatch informs the application and service platform when the hit ratio has reached the threshold value."
"Fargate's integration with other AWS services is really good."
"If you create your deployment with a good set of rules for how to scale in, you can just set it and forget it."
"The most valuable feature of Fargate is that it's self-managed. You don't have to configure your own clusters or deploy any Kubernetes clusters. This simplifies the initial deployment and scaling process."
 

Cons

"The solution must improve its performance."
"Apache Spark provides very good performance The tuning phase is still tricky."
"It would be beneficial to enhance Spark's capabilities by incorporating models that utilize features not traditionally present in its framework."
"For improvement, I think the tool could make things easier for people who aren't very technical. There's a significant learning curve, and I've seen organizations give up because of it. Making it quicker or easier for non-technical people would be beneficial."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Include more machine learning algorithms and the ability to handle streaming of data versus micro batch processing."
"I would like to see enhanced faster application scaling and better integration with the elastic file system to unify storage volumes and improve the launch time of instances."
"Challenges include higher costs for smaller clients, limited control over underlying infrastructure customization, and potential latencies during task startup."
"The main area for improvement is the cost, which could be lowered to be more competitive with other major cloud providers."
"AWS Fargate could improve the privileged mode containers. We had some problems and they were not able to run."
"I heard from my team that it's not easy to predict the cost. That is the only issue we have with AWS Fargate, but I think that's acceptable. AWS Fargate isn't user-friendly. Anything related to Software as a Service or microservice architecture is not easy to implement. You're required to have DevOps from your side to implement the solution. AWS Fargate is just a temporary solution for us. When we grow to a certain level, we may use AKS for better control."
"If there are any options to manage containers, that would be good. That relates more to the cost point. For example, over the next three months, I'll be making a comparison between solutions like CAST AI and other software-as-a-service platforms that offer Kubernetes management with an emphasis on cost reduction."
"AWS Fargate needs improvement in terms of setup complexity."
"We would like to see some improvement in the process documents that are provided with this product, particularly for auto-scaling and other configuration tools that are a bit complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is an open-source product. If you're using the open-source Apache Spark, no fees are involved at any time. Charges only come into play when using it with other services like Databricks."
"It is quite expensive. In fact, it accounts for almost 50% of the cost of our entire project."
"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."
"Spark is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"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."
"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."
"We are using the free version of the solution."
"It is an open-source solution, it is free of charge."
"I rate the price of AWS Fargate a four out of five."
"We would advise that this solution has a slightly-higher price point than others on the market. There is a free plan available for start-ups, but the free and lower range licensing models do not provide the full functionality."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Compute Service solutions are best for your needs.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 main concern is the overhead of Java when distributed processing is not necessary. In such cases, operations can often be done on one node, making Spark's distributed mode unnecessary. Conseque...
What do you like most about AWS Fargate?
The most valuable feature of Fargate is that it's self-managed. You don't have to configure your own clusters or deploy any Kubernetes clusters. This simplifies the initial deployment and scaling p...
What needs improvement with AWS Fargate?
I would like to see enhanced faster application scaling and better integration with the elastic file system to unify storage volumes and improve the launch time of instances. It requires enhancemen...
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Fargate?
I recommend using AWS Fargate as it offers serverless computing capabilities with integration into load balancing, making it a good and beneficial solution. I'd rate the solution six out of ten.
 

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
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Fargate vs. Apache Spark and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.