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Azure HDInsight VS Apache Flink

Compare Azure HDInsight VS Apache Flink and see what are their differences

Azure HDInsight logo Azure HDInsight

Azure HDInsight is a managed Apache Hadoop cloud service that lets you run Apache Spark, Apache Hive, Apache Kafka, Apache HBase, and more.

Apache Flink logo Apache Flink

Flink is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations.
  • Azure HDInsight Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-26
  • Apache Flink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03

Azure HDInsight features and specs

  • Scalability
    Azure HDInsight allows for easy scaling of clusters to meet the demands of large data processing tasks, offering flexibility in managing resources.
  • Managed Service
    HDInsight is a fully managed cloud service, which reduces the overhead of managing hardware and infrastructure for big data workloads.
  • Cost-effectiveness
    Pay-as-you-go pricing model helps to minimize costs by only charging for the resources that are actually used.
  • Integration with Azure Ecosystem
    Seamlessly integrates with other Azure services like Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Active Directory, and more, enhancing functionality.
  • Supports Multiple Frameworks
    Supports a range of open-source frameworks, such as Hadoop, Spark, Hive, Kafka, HBase, and Storm, providing flexibility in choosing the right tool for the job.
  • Security Features
    Offers enterprise-grade security features including secure network connectivity, encryption, and integration with Azure Active Directory.

Possible disadvantages of Azure HDInsight

  • Complexity
    The setup and management of data pipelines and clusters can be complex and may require specialized skills in big data technologies.
  • Maintenance
    Despite being a managed service, certain aspects still require user oversight, such as monitoring job performance and managing configurations.
  • Performance Overhead
    There can be some performance overhead and latency issues compared to on-premises deployments, particularly with I/O operations.
  • Cost Uncertainty
    While the pay-as-you-go model is cost-effective, unpredictable workloads can lead to unforeseen expenses.
  • Limited Support for Some Tools
    Some emerging or less common big data tools may not be supported, limiting flexibility for certain niche use cases.

Apache Flink features and specs

  • Real-time Stream Processing
    Apache Flink is designed for real-time data streaming, offering low-latency processing capabilities that are essential for applications requiring immediate data insights.
  • Event Time Processing
    Flink supports event time processing, which allows it to handle out-of-order events effectively and provide accurate results based on the time events actually occurred rather than when they were processed.
  • State Management
    Flink provides robust state management features, making it easier to maintain and query state across distributed nodes, which is crucial for managing long-running applications.
  • Fault Tolerance
    The framework includes built-in mechanisms for fault tolerance, such as consistent checkpoints and savepoints, ensuring high reliability and data consistency even in the case of failures.
  • Scalability
    Apache Flink is highly scalable, capable of handling both batch and stream processing workloads across a distributed cluster, making it suitable for large-scale data processing tasks.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    Flink has a rich set of APIs and integrations with other big data tools, such as Apache Kafka, Apache Hadoop, and Apache Cassandra, enhancing its versatility and ease of integration into existing data pipelines.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Flink

  • Complexity
    Flinkโ€™s advanced features and capabilities come with a steep learning curve, making it more challenging to set up and use compared to simpler stream processing frameworks.
  • Resource Intensive
    The framework can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial memory and CPU resources for optimal performance, which might be a concern for smaller setups or cost-sensitive environments.
  • Community Support
    While growing, the community around Apache Flink is not as large or mature as some other big data frameworks like Apache Spark, potentially limiting the availability of community-contributed resources and support.
  • Ecosystem Maturity
    Despite its integrations, the Flink ecosystem is still maturing, and certain tools and plugins may not be as developed or stable as those available for more established frameworks.
  • Operational Overhead
    Running and maintaining a Flink cluster can involve significant operational overhead, including monitoring, scaling, and troubleshooting, which might require a dedicated team or additional expertise.

Analysis of Apache Flink

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Apache Flink is considered a good distributed stream processing framework.

Why this product is good

  • Rich api
    Flink offers a rich set of APIs for various levels of abstraction, catering to different needs of developers.
  • Scalability
    Flink provides excellent horizontal scalability, making it suitable for handling large data streams and high-throughput applications.
  • Fault tolerance
    Flink's checkpointing mechanism ensures fault-tolerance, maintaining data state consistency even after failures.
  • Ease of integration
    Flink integrates well with other big data tools and ecosystems, facilitating broader data architecture designs.
  • Real-time processing
    It excels at processing data in real-time, allowing for immediate insights and action on streaming data.
  • Community and support
    Being a part of the Apache Software Foundation, Flink benefits from a large community and comprehensive documentation.
  • Complex event processing
    It supports complex event processing, which is essential for many real-time applications.

Recommended for

  • real-time analytics
  • stream data processing
  • complex event processing
  • machine learning in streaming applications
  • applications requiring high-throughput and low-latency processing
  • companies looking for robust fault-tolerance in distributed systems

Azure HDInsight videos

Introduction to Azure HDInsight

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to create Azure HDInsight Cluster| Load data and run queries on an Apache Spark cluster|Power BI

Apache Flink videos

GOTO 2019 โ€ข Introduction to Stateful Stream Processing with Apache Flink โ€ข Robert Metzger

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Apache Flink Tutorial | Flink vs Spark | Real Time Analytics Using Flink | Apache Flink Training
  • Tutorial - How to build a modern stream processor: The science behind Apache Flink - Stefan Richter

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Azure HDInsight and Apache Flink)
Big Data
20 20%
80% 80
Data Dashboard
100 100%
0% 0
Stream Processing
0 0%
100% 100
Data Warehousing
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

Azure HDInsight Reviews

16 Top Big Data Analytics Tools You Should Know About
Using Azure HDInsights, we can deploy Hadoop in the cloud without purchasing new hardware or paying other up-front costs.

Apache Flink Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Flink yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Flink seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 45 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.

Azure HDInsight mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Azure HDInsight yet. Tracking of Azure HDInsight recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Apache Flink mentions (45)

  • Gravitino - the unified metadata lake
    In the meantime, other query engine support is on the roadmap, including Apache Spark, Apache Flink, and others. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Towards Sub-100ms Latency Stream Processing with an S3-Based Architecture
    Many stream processing systems today still rely on local disks and RocksDB to manage state. This model has been around for a while and works fine in simple, single-tenant setups. Apache Flink, for example, uses RocksDB as its default state backend - state is kept on local disks, and periodic checkpoints are written to external storage for recovery. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Introducing RisingWave's Hosted Iceberg Catalog-No External Setup Needed
    Because the hosted catalog is a standard JDBC catalog, tools like Spark, Trino, and Flink can still access your tables. For example:. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • When plans change at 500 feet: Complex event processing of ADS-B aviation data with Apache Flink
    I wrote a python based aircraft monitor which polls the adsb.fi feed for aircraft transponder messages, and publishes each location update as a new event into an Apache Kafka topic. I used Apache Flink โ€” and more specially Flink SQL, to transform and analyse my flight data. The TL;DR summary is I can write SQL for my real-time data processing queries โ€” and get the scalability, fault tolerance, and low latency... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • What is Apache Flink? Exploring Its Open Source Business Model, Funding, and Community
    Continuous Learning: Leverage online tutorials from the official Flink website and attend webinars for deeper insights. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Azure HDInsight and Apache Flink, you can also consider the following products

Google BigQuery - A fully managed data warehouse for large-scale data analytics.

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

Amazon EMR - Amazon Elastic MapReduce is a web service that makes it easy to quickly process vast amounts of data.

Amazon Kinesis - Amazon Kinesis services make it easy to work with real-time streaming data in the AWS cloud.

Qubole - Qubole delivers a self-service platform for big aata analytics built on Amazon, Microsoft and Google Clouds.

Spring Framework - The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform.