Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Materialize VS Apache Spark

Compare Materialize VS Apache Spark and see what are their differences

Materialize logo Materialize

A Streaming Database for Real-Time Applications

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.
  • Materialize Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27
  • Apache Spark Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-31

Materialize features and specs

  • Real-time Analytics
    Materialize offers real-time stream processing and materialized views, which allow users to get instant results from their data without the need for batch processing. This is particularly useful for applications that require immediate insights.
  • SQL Support
    Materialize supports SQL, making it easy for users familiar with SQL databases to adopt the platform without needing to learn a new language or framework.
  • Consistency
    Materialize maintains strict consistency for its materialized views, ensuring that users always get accurate and up-to-date information from their streams.
  • Integration with Kafka
    It integrates smoothly with Kafka, allowing for easy handling of streaming data and simplifying the process of working with real-time data feeds.

Possible disadvantages of Materialize

  • Scaling Limitations
    Materialize may face challenges when scaling to handle very large data sets compared to some distributed systems designed for big data processing.
  • Limited Language Support
    While SQL is supported, some users may find the lack of alternative query language support limiting, especially if they're accustomed to more expressive query options available in other systems.
  • Complexity in Use Cases
    For more complex use cases involving intricate data transformations or processing, Materialize might require additional configuration and optimization, posing a challenge for less experienced users.
  • Resource Intensive
    The real-time nature of Materialize, especially with maintaining materialized views, can be resource-intensive, potentially leading to higher operational costs.

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.

Materialize videos

Bootstrap Vs. Materialize - Which One Should You Choose?

More videos:

  • Review - Materialize Review | Does it compete with Substance Painter?
  • Review - Why We Don't Need Bootstrap, Tailwind or Materialize

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Materialize and Apache Spark)
Databases
27 27%
73% 73
Database Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Big Data
16 16%
84% 84
Stream Processing
27 27%
73% 73

User comments

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Reviews

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

Materialize Reviews

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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...

Social recommendations and mentions

Materialize might be a bit more popular than Apache Spark. We know about 72 links to it since March 2021 and only 70 links to Apache Spark. 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.

Materialize mentions (72)

  • Category Theory in Programming
    It's hard to write something that is both accessible and well-motivated. The best uses of category theory is when the morphisms are far more exotic than "regular functions". E.g. It would be nice to describe a circuit of live queries (like https://materialize.com/ stuff) with proper caching, joins, etc. Figuring this out is a bit of an open problem. Haskell's standard library's Monad and stuff are watered down to... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Building Databases over a Weekend
    > [...] `https://materialize.com/` to solve their memory issues [...] Disclaimer: I work at Materialize Recently there have been major improvements in Materialize's memory usage as well as using disk to swap out some data. I find it pretty easy to hook up to Postgres/MySQL/Kafka instances: https://materialize.com/blog/materialize-emulator/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Building Databases over a Weekend
    I agree. So many disparate solutions. The streaming sql primitives are by themselves good enough (e.g. `tumble`, `hop` or `session` windows), but the infrastructural components are always rough in real life use cases. Crossing fingers for solutions like `https://github.com/feldera/feldera` to solve their memory issues, or `https://clickhouse.com/docs/en/materialized-view` to solve reliable streaming consumption.... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Drasi: Microsoft's open source data processing platform for event-driven systems
    Or the related Materialize stuff https://materialize.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Rama on Clojure's terms, and the magic of continuation-passing style
    The original post makes so much more sense in this context! One of the "holy grails" in my mind is making CQRS and dataflow programming as easy to learn and maintain as existing imperative programming languages - and easy to weave into real-time UX. There are so many backend endpoints in the wild that do a bunch of things in a loop, many of which will require I/O or calls to slow external endpoints, transform the... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
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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 / 11 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 / 13 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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What are some alternatives?

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

RisingWave - RisingWave is a stream processing platform that utilizes SQL to enhance data analysis, offering improved insights on real-time data.

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

Hadoop - Open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing

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

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

ClickHouse - ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented database management system that allows generating analytical data reports in real time.