Apache Spark vs. SAP Crystal

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Spark
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
SAP Crystal
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
SAP Crystal is an analytics and reporting software solution for SMBs. SAP Crystal comprises Crystal Reports for pixel-perfect reporting, and SAP Crystal Server for automated distribution and self-service access to reports, dashboards and data exploration.
$295
per single user license
Pricing
Apache SparkSAP Crystal
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Upgrade Version to SAP Crystal Reports 2020
$295
per single user license
SAP Crystal Reports 2020 64-Bit
$495
per single user license
SAP Crystal Reports 2016 32-Bit
$495
per single user license
SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL
$869
per user license + first year maintenance to be added
SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL
$8,744
5 concurrent users + first year maintenance to be added
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache SparkSAP Crystal
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details* SAP Crystal Reports 2020 Viewer allows you to view static data within a SAP Crystal Reports file. * SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Full version allows you to create powerful, richly formatted, and dynamic reports from virtually any data source, delivered in dozens of formats, in up to 28 languages. If you already have an older version of Crystal Reports, buy a license for SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Upgrade at a discounted, upgrade price. * SAP Crystal Server 2020, 1 NUL includes 1 license of: SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - SAP Crystal Server 2020. * As an add-on to SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL, SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL allows you to support a wider, intermittent audience of end users, up to five logged on at the same time.
More Pricing Information
Features
Apache SparkSAP Crystal
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
9.3
122 Ratings
13% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.0111 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings10.097 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings10.0115 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
9.6
134 Ratings
17% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings10.0115 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings10.0133 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.663 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings10.0118 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
9.4
134 Ratings
12% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings9.289 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings10.0131 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings9.093 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.096 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings10.052 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
8.0
88 Ratings
1% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings7.651 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.575 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.841 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
8.6
86 Ratings
0% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings7.879 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings7.778 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.478 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.038 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
8.4
62 Ratings
5% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.760 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.643 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings9.057 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
SAP Crystal
7.0
43 Ratings
12% below category average
REST API00 Ratings7.48 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings6.035 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.18 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings6.035 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.337 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.031 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apache SparkSAP Crystal
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudera Manager
Cloudera Manager
Score 9.7 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Analytics Engine
IBM Analytics Engine
Score 8.8 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache SparkSAP Crystal
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(24 ratings)
10.0
(156 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(19 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.4
(28 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(4 ratings)
8.6
(21 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(14 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache SparkSAP Crystal
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
Well suited: To most of the local run of datasets and non-prod systems - scalability is not a problem at all. Including data from multiple types of data sources is an added advantage. MLlib is a decently nice built-in library that can be used for most of the ML tasks. Less appropriate: We had to work on a RecSys where the music dataset that we used was around 300+Gb in size. We faced memory-based issues. Few times we also got memory errors. Also the MLlib library does not have support for advanced analytics and deep-learning frameworks support. Understanding the internals of the working of Apache Spark for beginners is highly not possible.
Read full review
SAP
Generation of templated reports is the strong suit of SAP Crystal. Allows users to change formats in templates bases on requirement with minimal effort. Automated report delivery requires the user to be aware of sql which cannot be expected from all users. Should support more document export formats and improve the UI for SAP B1 Users
Read full review
Pros
Apache
  • Apache Spark makes processing very large data sets possible. It handles these data sets in a fairly quick manner.
  • Apache Spark does a fairly good job implementing machine learning models for larger data sets.
  • Apache Spark seems to be a rapidly advancing software, with the new features making the software ever more straight-forward to use.
Read full review
SAP
  • Crystal Reports allows us to create a consistent template for all of our reports.
  • Crystal Reports and Server allows us to house a repository for all of our reports to make them easy to find and update when necessary.
  • Crystal Reports can connect to a wide variety of data sources.
  • Crystal Reports can be a little daunting when first implementing. There are a lot of nuances in learning how to truly master this software and it can be frustrating at times.
Read full review
Cons
Apache
  • Memory management. Very weak on that.
  • PySpark not as robust as scala with spark.
  • spark master HA is needed. Not as HA as it should be.
  • Locality should not be a necessity, but does help improvement. But would prefer no locality
Read full review
SAP
  • The export of reports to Excel is very cumbersome and the results are difficult to format.
  • The design of reports and the graphical features (e.g. charts) feel quite rigid.
  • The learning curve for a non-programmer is incredibly steep, making Crystal a specialty tool.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Apache
Capacity of computing data in cluster and fast speed.
Read full review
SAP
We have been using this product for so many years and it has truly become a cornerstone to our business processes when it comes to developing and distributing information via reports. We currently have over 500 reports developed to date over about 30 systems and that will continue to grow as user needs change.
Read full review
Usability
Apache
The only thing I dislike about spark's usability is the learning curve, there are many actions and transformations, however, its wide-range of uses for ETL processing, facility to integrate and it's multi-language support make this library a powerhouse for your data science solutions. It has especially aided us with its lightning-fast processing times.
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SAP
Crystal is very robust, but not always easy to use. It create wonderful looking reports, and so deserves a high rating. However, I have to take a couple of points off for the simple fact that I cannot hand it to a user and expect them to be able to do development with it.
Read full review
Support Rating
Apache
1. It integrates very well with scala or python. 2. It's very easy to understand SQL interoperability. 3. Apache is way faster than the other competitive technologies. 4. The support from the Apache community is very huge for Spark. 5. Execution times are faster as compared to others. 6. There are a large number of forums available for Apache Spark. 7. The code availability for Apache Spark is simpler and easy to gain access to. 8. Many organizations use Apache Spark, so many solutions are available for existing applications.
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SAP
The support community can be difficult to navigate. I've also run into issues with my login. The SAP system has a bizarre mechanism for validating users that requires users to have what is called an S-ID. A basic ID may not give you access to all the features in the portal. The limitation may include not being able to perform a simple task like downloading patches and updates. This isn't a big deal for single user license but for teams it can be a pain.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Apache
No answers on this topic
SAP
Trainer was patient and thorough in going through the basics and willing to answer questions by email after the initial training
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Apache
No answers on this topic
SAP
Just like any other implementation: When designing the differing reports, get end users' input, make sure to design the reports so that they display the information that the company requires, in the best and clearest way possible.
Test, test, test, revise when needed, and, particularly, do sufficient training so users are comfortable using Crystal Reports!
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Apache
All the above systems work quite well on big data transformations whereas Spark really shines with its bigger API support and its ability to read from and write to multiple data sources. Using Spark one can easily switch between declarative versus imperative versus functional type programming easily based on the situation. Also it doesn't need special data ingestion or indexing pre-processing like Presto. Combining it with Jupyter Notebooks (https://github.com/jupyter-incubator/sparkmagic), one can develop the Spark code in an interactive manner in Scala or Python
Read full review
SAP
Crystal reports is useful in case we want to import data from data base . We can write queries in it but Google Charts require to be implemented in our application using code so crystal reports is better than Google Charts.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Apache
  • Faster turn around on feature development, we have seen a noticeable improvement in our agile development since using Spark.
  • Easy adoption, having multiple departments use the same underlying technology even if the use cases are very different allows for more commonality amongst applications which definitely makes the operations team happy.
  • Performance, we have been able to make some applications run over 20x faster since switching to Spark. This has saved us time, headaches, and operating costs.
Read full review
SAP
  • It is a decent buy for specific departments in terms of reporting capabilities but updates and cost (frequent) demands are higher with the benefits offered.
  • So long as the requirements are not ever changing, with scheduling functionality, it's a handsome tool.
Read full review
ScreenShots

SAP Crystal Screenshots

Screenshot of Pixel-perfect reporting solutionScreenshot of Refresh with a clickScreenshot of Build pixel-perfect documentsScreenshot of Connect to all data sourcesScreenshot of Use drag and dropScreenshot of Build interactive reports