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Apache Spark vs Hortonworks Data Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache Spark
Ranking in Hadoop
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Compute Service (4th), Java Frameworks (2nd)
Hortonworks Data Platform
Ranking in Hadoop
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (15th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (9th)
 

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.
Prashant  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
A good technology with an easy setup but is at end of life
The solution is fairly simple to set up. It's not too complex or difficult. If you know the solution, it's easy. However, there is a learning curve. If you don't know anything about it, it can be more complex. You can typically deploy it within a week. We have five or six people capable of handling a deployment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its capacity for processing large amounts of data."
"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."
"I found the solution stable. We haven't had any problems with it."
"We use Spark to process data from different data sources."
"The main feature that we find valuable is that it is very fast."
"The good performance. The nice graphical management console. The long list of ML algorithms."
"Now, when we're tackling sentiment analysis using NLP technologies, we deal with unstructured data—customer chats, feedback on promotions or demos, and even media like images, audio, and video files. For processing such data, we rely on PySpark. Beneath the surface, Spark functions as a compute engine with in-memory processing capabilities, enhancing performance through features like broadcasting and caching. It's become a crucial tool, widely adopted by 90% of companies for a decade or more."
"The scalability is the key reason why we are on this platform."
"Hortonworks should not be expensive at all to those looking into using it."
"Distributed computing, secure containerization, and governance capabilities are the most valuable features."
"The upgrades and patches must come from Hortonworks."
"The Hortonworks solution is so stable. It is working as a production system, without any error, without any downtime. If I have downtime, it is mostly caused by the hardware of the computers."
"The product offers a fairly easy setup process."
"Now, using this solution, it is much cheaper to have all of the data available for searching, not in real-time, but whenever there is a pending request."
"We use it for data science activities."
 

Cons

"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."
"The management tools could use improvement. Some of the debugging tools need some work as well. They need to be more descriptive."
"It would be beneficial to enhance Spark's capabilities by incorporating models that utilize features not traditionally present in its framework."
"We've had problems using a Python process to try to access something in a large volume of data. It crashes if somebody gives me the wrong code because it cannot handle a large volume of data."
"Apache Spark should add some resource management improvements to the algorithms."
"There were some problems related to the product's compatibility with a few Python libraries."
"Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved."
"Spark could be improved by adding support for other open-source storage layers than Delta Lake."
"Deleting any service requires a lot of clean up, unlike Cloudera."
"Hive performance. If Hive performance increased, Hadoop would replace (not everywhere) traditional databases."
"Since Cloudera acquired HDP, it's been bundled with CBH and HDP. However, the biggest challenge is cloud storage integration with Azure, GCP, and AWS."
"I work a lot with banking, IT and communications customers. Hortonworks must improve or must upgrade their services for these sectors."
"It would also be nice if there were less coding involved."
"The version control of the software is also an issue."
"I would like to see more support for containers such as Docker and OpenShift."
"Security and workload management need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They provide an open-source license for the on-premise version."
"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."
"Spark is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera."
"Apache Spark is an open-source solution, and there is no cost involved in deploying the solution on-premises."
"On the cloud model can be expensive as it requires substantial resources for implementation, covering on-premises hardware, memory, and licensing."
"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 an open-source platform. We do not pay for its subscription."
"Currently, we are using the product in a sandbox environment, and there is no licensing. We might choose a licensing option once we get the results."
"It is priced well and it is affordable"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Hortonworks Data Platform?
Distributed computing, secure containerization, and governance capabilities are the most valuable features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hortonworks Data Platform?
I haven't done a price analysis specifically for HDP. However, when it was first introduced as Hadoop 2.0, there were a few use cases where the price was quite high. It was particularly expensive f...
What needs improvement with Hortonworks Data Platform?
Since Cloudera acquired HDP, it's been bundled with CBH and HDP. However, the biggest challenge is cloud storage integration with Azure, GCP, and AWS. These platforms offer competitive storage solu...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Hortonworks, HDP
 

Learn More

 

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
Mayo Clinic, Symantec, Progressive Insurance, Noble Energy, Cardinal Health, Rogers, Mercy, Neustar, TRUECar, T-Mobile
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. Hortonworks Data Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.