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Apache Spark vs npm 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

Apache Spark
Ranking in Java Frameworks
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Compute Service (4th)
npm
Ranking in Java Frameworks
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Java Frameworks category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 5.5%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of npm is 0.1%, down from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Java Frameworks
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Puneeth Babu - PeerSpot reviewer
Is scalable, easily approachable, stable, and easy to set up
There are a lot of features that are very fast in npm, even though it was developed 10 or 12 years back. It comes with a bundle or library, so your development time will radically reduce to half. If you need to spin up a new server or you need to have a developer at minimum cost, it can be easily achieved within npm. Overall, I give npm a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution provides a clear and convenient syntax for our analytical tasks."
"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 fault tolerant feature is provided."
"Apache Spark is known for its ease of use. Compared to other available data processing frameworks, it is user-friendly."
"The scalability has been the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"Apache Spark can do large volume interactive data analysis."
"Apache Spark provides a very high-quality implementation of distributed data processing."
"It is highly scalable, allowing you to efficiently work with extensive datasets that might be problematic to handle using traditional tools that are memory-constrained."
"The reversal build, gendered build, migrated PCA, and CT features are excellent."
"The product's most valuable feature is dependency installation."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of NPM is to trigger APMs."
"It's an open-source setting that's very scalable and easily approachable. I like that you can plug in many features to my product."
 

Cons

"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 are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling."
"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."
"Include more machine learning algorithms and the ability to handle streaming of data versus micro batch processing."
"At the initial stage, the product provides no container logs to check the activity."
"Apache Spark provides very good performance The tuning phase is still tricky."
"The solution must improve its performance."
"Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved."
"Some of the libraries that we try to use in npm have issues with security. Also, because it's an open-source solution, I think there are lots of challenges with security. So, the security layer could be improved."
"I would like to see compatible versions, and what new features they will be providing. If it is a useful feature I can merge it. If it is not a usable feature, then I can ignore the newer version."
"The product should be compatible with various programming languages, including both native and upcoming languages."
"The library could be updated."
"NPM can improve the package manager. For the packages we download for our APM studio to trigger our APM driver, it would benefit if we could have the latest version of NuGet Package Manager within the package manager control. For example, Visual Studio would be good. Then it would be easy for us to get the package manager from there instead of Googling it out and matching it with the current version. It would be less time-consuming for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free version of the solution."
"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."
"They provide an open-source license for the on-premise version."
"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 an open-source solution, it is free of charge."
"It is quite expensive. In fact, it accounts for almost 50% of the cost of our entire project."
"Apache Spark is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive, considering the setup."
"We use the open-source version, so it is free."
"It's an open-source solution, and there are no hidden fees."
"NPM is an open-source solution."
"The licensing cost is around one hundred and fifty dollars on a quarterly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 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...
What do you like most about NPM?
The product's most valuable feature is dependency installation.
What needs improvement with NPM?
The product should be compatible with various programming languages, including both native and upcoming languages. There should be an extension for C++ language as many customers prefer it for the ...
What is your primary use case for NPM?
We use the product as a packet manager for orchestration and dashboard management. It helps in running the development server.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

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
slack, microsoft, netflix, adobe, docker, visa, splunk, zillow
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. npm and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.