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SAP HANA vs Spark SQL 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

SAP HANA
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Embedded Database (4th), Relational Databases Tools (4th)
Spark SQL
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Jayarami Reddy Pujeri - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive system with real-time analytics for versatile industry applications
Our primary use case is working with various clients in industries such as pharmaceuticals and other services. We support clients as implementers of SAP HANA, providing expertise in functionality, finance, logistics, and processes The solution is very user-friendly and supports all kinds of…
Sahil Taneja - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and do not require a learning curve
Spark SQL can improve the documentation they have provided. It can be a bit unclear at times. They could improve the documentation a bit more so that we can understand it more easily. Moreover, they could improve SparkUI to have more advanced versions of the performance and the queries and all.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SAP HANA's interface is pretty user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of SAP HANA is the interaction it provides with external suppliers and clients."
"Some functions have good performance."
"The memory is the solution's most valuable feature. It's the main feature of HANA. Others are still the regular IT databases that are on storage and are therefore much slower than HANA. The solution is quite fast."
"It's stable and reliable."
"The main feature is that the processes are very flexible, they are able to be adapted to the business and their departments."
"It's user-friendly so long as you use it frequently."
"We like that the product is both vertically and horizontally scalable, allowing us to do around 86 percent compression of documentation from 50 to seven terabytes."
"One of Spark SQL's most beautiful features is running parallel queries to go through enormous data."
"It is a stable solution."
"Certain data sets that are very large are very difficult to process with Pandas and Python libraries. Spark SQL has helped us a lot with that."
"The team members don't have to learn a new language and can implement complex tasks very easily using only SQL."
"Offers a variety of methods to design queries and incorporates the regular SQL syntax within tasks."
"Spark SQL's efficiency in managing distributed data and its simplicity in expressing complex operations make it an essential part of our data pipeline."
"I find the Thrift connection valuable."
"Data validation and ease of use are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"The initial setup of SAP HANA is complex. We did the implementation of one site, and a global deployment will take another three to four years."
"SAP HANA's long run time to extract data could be improved upon."
"The solution needs to work on its performance and make it faster."
"When you do a report on a non-SAP platform, you face some compatibility problems."
"There are a few areas wherein there could be a patch upgrade, and that can cover up the country-specific payroll areas."
"The user interface and CRM need to be more user-friendly."
"The worst thing about SAP HANA is the price; it's very expensive. The licensing cost, implementation cost, hosting cost, and appliance cost are all high."
"Technical support should be more customer-friendly."
"In terms of improvement, the only thing that could be enhanced is the stability aspect of Spark SQL."
"It would be useful if Spark SQL integrated with some data visualization tools."
"I've experienced some incompatibilities when using the Delta Lake format."
"SparkUI could have more advanced versions of the performance and the queries and all."
"There should be better integration with other solutions."
"Being a new user, I am not able to find out how to partition it correctly. I probably need more information or knowledge. In other database solutions, you can easily optimize all partitions. I haven't found a quicker way to do that in Spark SQL. It would be good if you don't need a partition here, and the system automatically partitions in the best way. They can also provide more educational resources for new users."
"In the next release, maybe the visualization of some command-line features could be added."
"Anything to improve the GUI would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SAP HANA is very expensive here in China. My company bought the SAP ERP suite, which includes SAP HANA. For others who use SAP HANA as an analytical database, CPU numbers will affect the pricing, so as a solution, it's costly."
"SAP HANA is affordable. I rate it a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is relatively high for both customers and partners."
"It is expensive, which isn't a problem for us because SAP HANA is processing the data so fast."
"People who are technical will accept the cost, but financially they will assess whether this solution will bring them revenue or not. People often ask, how will I profit when the cost is so high?"
"The tool is expensive compared to other products, like Oracle R or Microsoft, but it offers a range of all the company's functions."
"We pay $200 on a monthly basis."
"SAP HANA is expensive, but unfortunately, we do not have any alternatives."
"The on-premise solution is quite expensive in terms of hardware, setting up the cluster, memory, hardware and resources. It depends on the use case, but in our case with a shared cluster which is quite large, it is quite expensive."
"The solution is open-sourced and free."
"There is no license or subscription for this solution."
"The solution is bundled with Palantir Foundry at no extra charge."
"We don't have to pay for licenses with this solution because we are working in a small market, and we rely on open-source because the budgets of projects are very small."
"We use the open-source version, so we do not have direct support from Apache."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are the biggest benefits of using SAP HANA?
Based on my work with SAP HANA, the biggest benefit that it can bring to your business is total data management. This product is by SAP - a company that serves almost all needs a client may have co...
Is SAP HANA’s customer and technical support reliable?
We have been using SAP HANA for a fairly short period of time and have only taken advantage of their customer support. So far, we have not had issues that required specialized help from technical s...
Is SAP HANA difficult to set up and start using?
SAP HANA is fairly easy to set up, however, I do not think a complete beginner can do it. You certainly need some preparation - either you need to have experience with similar solutions, or with ot...
What do you like most about Spark SQL?
Spark SQL's efficiency in managing distributed data and its simplicity in expressing complex operations make it an essential part of our data pipeline.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spark SQL?
We don't have to pay for licenses with this solution because we are working in a small market, and we rely on open-source because the budgets of projects are very small.
What needs improvement with Spark SQL?
In terms of improvement, the only thing that could be enhanced is the stability aspect of Spark SQL. There could be additional features that I haven't explored but the current solution for working ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, Hitachi Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP HANA vs. Spark SQL and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.