Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache Spark VS Hadoop

Compare Apache Spark VS Hadoop and see what are their differences

Apache Spark logo Apache Spark

Apache Spark is an engine for big data processing, with built-in modules for streaming, SQL, machine learning and graph processing.

Hadoop logo Hadoop

Open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing
  • Apache Spark Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-31
  • Hadoop Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-17

Apache Spark features and specs

  • Speed
    Apache Spark processes data in-memory, significantly increasing the processing speed of data tasks compared to traditional disk-based engines.
  • Ease of Use
    Spark offers high-level APIs in Java, Scala, Python, and R, making it accessible to a broad range of developers and data scientists.
  • Advanced Analytics
    Spark supports advanced analytics, including machine learning, graph processing, and real-time streaming, which can be executed in the same application.
  • Scalability
    Spark can handle both small- and large-scale data processing tasks, scaling seamlessly from a single machine to thousands of servers.
  • Support for Various Data Sources
    Spark can integrate with a wide variety of data sources, including HDFS, Apache HBase, Apache Hive, Cassandra, and many others.
  • Active Community
    Spark has a vibrant and active community, providing a wealth of extensions, tools, and support options.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Spark

  • Memory Consumption
    Spark's in-memory processing can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial amounts of RAM, which can drive up costs for large-scale deployments.
  • Complexity in Configuration
    To optimize performance, Spark requires careful configuration and tuning, which can be complex and time-consuming.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its ease of use, mastering the full range of Spark's features and best practices can take considerable time and effort.
  • Latency for Small Data
    For smaller datasets or low-latency requirements, Spark might not be the most efficient choice, as other technologies could offer better performance.
  • Integration Overhead
    Though Spark integrates with many systems, incorporating it into an existing data infrastructure can introduce additional overhead and complexity.
  • Community Support Variability
    While the community is active, the support and quality of third-party libraries and tools can be inconsistent, leading to potential challenges in implementation.

Hadoop features and specs

  • Scalability
    Hadoop can easily scale from a single server to thousands of machines, each offering local computation and storage.
  • Cost-Effective
    It utilizes a distributed infrastructure, allowing you to use low-cost commodity hardware to store and process large datasets.
  • Fault Tolerance
    Hadoop automatically maintains multiple copies of all data and can automatically recover data on failure of nodes, ensuring high availability.
  • Flexibility
    It can process a wide variety of structured and unstructured data, including logs, images, audio, video, and more.
  • Parallel Processing
    Hadoop's MapReduce framework enables the parallel processing of large datasets across a distributed cluster.
  • Community Support
    As an Apache project, Hadoop has robust community support and a vast ecosystem of related tools and extensions.

Possible disadvantages of Hadoop

  • Complexity
    Setting up, maintaining, and tuning a Hadoop cluster can be complex and often requires specialized knowledge.
  • Overhead
    The MapReduce model can introduce additional overhead, particularly for tasks that require low-latency processing.
  • Security
    While improvements have been made, Hadoop's security model is considered less mature compared to some other data processing systems.
  • Hardware Requirements
    Though it can run on commodity hardware, Hadoop can still require significant computational and storage resources for larger datasets.
  • Lack of Real-Time Processing
    Hadoop is mainly designed for batch processing and is not well-suited for real-time data analytics, which can be a limitation for certain applications.
  • Data Integrity
    Distributed systems face challenges in maintaining data integrity and consistency, and Hadoop is no exception.

Apache Spark videos

Weekly Apache Spark live Code Review -- look at StringIndexer multi-col (Scala) & Python testing

More videos:

  • Review - What's New in Apache Spark 3.0.0
  • Review - Apache Spark for Data Engineering and Analysis - Overview

Hadoop videos

What is Big Data and Hadoop?

More videos:

  • Review - Product Ratings on Customer Reviews Using HADOOP.
  • Tutorial - Hadoop Tutorial For Beginners | Hadoop Ecosystem Explained in 20 min! - Frank Kane

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Spark and Hadoop)
Databases
72 72%
28% 28
Big Data
75 75%
25% 25
Stream Processing
100 100%
0% 0
Relational Databases
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Apache Spark and Hadoop

Apache Spark Reviews

15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Apache Spark is an open source data processing and analytics engine that can handle large amounts of data -- upward of several petabytes, according to proponents. Spark's ability to rapidly process data has fueled significant growth in the use of the platform since it was created in 2009, helping to make the Spark project one of the largest open source communities among big...
Top 15 Kafka Alternatives Popular In 2021
Apache Spark is a well-known, general-purpose, open-source analytics engine for large-scale, core data processing. It is known for its high-performance quality for data processing – batch and streaming with the help of its DAG scheduler, query optimizer, and engine. Data streams are processed in real-time and hence it is quite fast and efficient. Its machine learning...
5 Best-Performing Tools that Build Real-Time Data Pipeline
Apache Spark is an open-source and flexible in-memory framework which serves as an alternative to map-reduce for handling batch, real-time analytics and data processing workloads. It provides native bindings for the Java, Scala, Python, and R programming languages, and supports SQL, streaming data, machine learning and graph processing. From its beginning in the AMPLab at...

Hadoop Reviews

A List of The 16 Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose Them
Companies considering Hadoop should be aware of its costs. A significant portion of the cost of implementing Hadoop comes from the computing power required for processing and the expertise needed to maintain Hadoop ETL, rather than the tools or storage themselves.
16 Top Big Data Analytics Tools You Should Know About
Hadoop is an Apache open-source framework. Written in Java, Hadoop is an ecosystem of components that are primarily used to store, process, and analyze big data. The USP of Hadoop is it enables multiple types of analytic workloads to run on the same data, at the same time, and on a massive scale on industry-standard hardware.
5 Best-Performing Tools that Build Real-Time Data Pipeline
Hadoop is an open-source framework that allows to store and process big data in a distributed environment across clusters of computers using simple programming models. It is designed to scale up from single servers to thousands of machines, each offering local computation and storage. Rather than relying on hardware to deliver high-availability, the library itself is...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Spark should be more popular than Hadoop. It has been mentiond 70 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache Spark mentions (70)

  • Every Database Will Support Iceberg — Here's Why
    Apache Iceberg defines a table format that separates how data is stored from how data is queried. Any engine that implements the Iceberg integration — Spark, Flink, Trino, DuckDB, Snowflake, RisingWave — can read and/or write Iceberg data directly. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • How to Reduce Big Data Analytics Costs by 90% with Karpenter and Spark
    Apache Spark powers large-scale data analytics and machine learning, but as workloads grow exponentially, traditional static resource allocation leads to 30–50% resource waste due to idle Executors and suboptimal instance selection. - Source: dev.to / 12 days ago
  • Unveiling the Apache License 2.0: A Deep Dive into Open Source Freedom
    One of the key attributes of Apache License 2.0 is its flexible nature. Permitting use in both proprietary and open source environments, it has become the go-to choice for innovative projects ranging from the Apache HTTP Server to large-scale initiatives like Apache Spark and Hadoop. This flexibility is not solely legal; it is also philosophical. The license is designed to encourage transparency and maintain a... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • The Application of Java Programming In Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence
    [1] S. Russell and P. Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Pearson, 2020. [2] F. Chollet, Deep Learning with Python. Manning Publications, 2018. [3] C. C. Aggarwal, Data Mining: The Textbook. Springer, 2015. [4] J. Dean and S. Ghemawat, "MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters," Communications of the ACM, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 107-113, 2008. [5] Apache Software Foundation, "Apache... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Automating Enhanced Due Diligence in Regulated Applications
    If you're designing an event-based pipeline, you can use a data streaming tool like Kafka to process data as it's collected by the pipeline. For a setup that already has data stored, you can use tools like Apache Spark to batch process and clean it before moving ahead with the pipeline. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
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Hadoop mentions (22)

  • Unveiling the Apache License 2.0: A Deep Dive into Open Source Freedom
    One of the key attributes of Apache License 2.0 is its flexible nature. Permitting use in both proprietary and open source environments, it has become the go-to choice for innovative projects ranging from the Apache HTTP Server to large-scale initiatives like Apache Spark and Hadoop. This flexibility is not solely legal; it is also philosophical. The license is designed to encourage transparency and maintain a... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Apache Hadoop: Pioneering Open Source Innovation in Big Data
    Apache Hadoop is more than just software—it’s a full-fledged ecosystem built on the principles of open collaboration and decentralized governance. Born out of a need to process vast amounts of information efficiently, Hadoop uses a distributed file system and the MapReduce programming model to enable scalable, fault-tolerant computing. Central to its success is a diverse ecosystem that includes influential... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Embracing the Future: India's Pioneering Journey in Open Source Development
    Navya: Designed to streamline administrative processes in educational institutions, Navya continues to demonstrate the power of open source in addressing local needs. Additionally, India’s vibrant tech communities are well represented on platforms like GitHub and SourceForge. These platforms host numerous Indian-led projects and serve as collaborative hubs for developers across diverse technology landscapes.... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Where is Java Used in Industry?
    The rise of big data has seen Java arise as a crucial player in this domain. Tools like Hadoop and Apache Spark are built using Java, enabling businesses to process and analyze massive datasets efficiently. Java’s scalability and performance are critical for big data results that demand high trustability. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • How to Install PySpark on Your Local Machine
    While Spark doesn’t strictly require Hadoop, many users install it for its HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) support. To install Hadoop:. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Spark and Hadoop, you can also consider the following products

Apache Flink - Flink is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations.

Apache Storm - Apache Storm is a free and open source distributed realtime computation system.

Apache Hive - Apache Hive data warehouse software facilitates querying and managing large datasets residing in distributed storage.

PostgreSQL - PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

Apache Kafka - Apache Kafka is an open-source message broker project developed by the Apache Software Foundation written in Scala.

MongoDB - MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance NoSQL database.