Analytics Big Data Spark

10 Best Apache Spark Books for Beginners and Experienced Professionals

Apache Spark is another big data processing engine like MapReduce and is 100 times faster than Hadoop. The industry is currently grabbing Spark and they are moving their existing Hadoop set up to spark engine. And this is the reason, suddenly the demand for Spark developers and spark professionals have increased. So, we thought to share some best Apache Spark books for beginners and experienced professionals to master Apache Spark.

Spark BooksOur earlier posts on Hadoop books for beginners and Apache Yarn books were loved by the audiences and so we thought of coming with best Apache Spark books.

Here we have reviewed and analyzed almost all the Apache Spark books available in the market and then selected these best Apache Spark books for beginners and experienced professionals.
You can go through these top Spark books and master the Apache Spark Framework easily. Some of these top Spark books also covers the programming language Scala and so will be useful for learning Spark as well as Scala also. You can also check our best Hadoop books collections below-

3 Best Apache Yarn Books

5 Best Apache Hive Books

10 Best Hadoop books for Beginners

Top Apache Spark Books for Beginners and Experienced Professionals

As said, our team has reviewed various Apache Spark books available in the market and came up with the following list of best Apache Spark books for beginners and experienced. These apache spark books for a beginner are equally beneficial for experienced professionals as well.

Spark Books NameBest forFeaturesMore Details
Learning Spark: Lightning-Fast Big Data AnalysisBeginners & ExperiencedSpark SQL, Spark Streaming, and MLlib
Advanced Analytics with SparkExperienced & Analytics useMachine Learning tools, Reusable Codes
High Performance SparkExperienced ProfessionalsCore Spark, Spark SQL, Mlib, ML, Spark Streaming
Spark CookbookData engineer & Application Developer Spark Core, Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, MLlib, and GraphX libraries
Mastering Apache SparkBeginnersFlume, HDFS, GraphX, H2O
Big Data Analytics with SparkMid Level with some knowledge of HadoopSpark core and its add-on libraries, including Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, GraphX, and MLlib
Apache Spark in 24 HoursPerfect for BeginnersSpark with SQL (Spark SQL) and NoSQL (Cassandra), Kafka
Spark in ActionBoth Beginners & Experienced with Focus on PracticalsRDD, SparkSQL, and APIs
Pro Spark StreamingData scientists, big data experts, BI analysts, and data architectsSpark SQL, MLib, ML, Kafka, Scala
Spark: Big Data Cluster Computing in ProductionExperienced ProfessionalsSpark SQL, Tachyon, Kerberos, ML Lib, YARN, and Mesos

These Apache Spark Books I have listed here are in the order I recommend and suggest the users buy and follow. So, let’s start with Spark books for beginners and experienced professionals.

#1 Learning Spark: Lightning-Fast Big Data Analysis

Learning Spark is one of the best Apache Spark books I have come across. You will find this spark book going from very beginning to the advanced level.

Best Spark BooksBook Name: Learning Spark: Lightning-Fast Big Data Analysis

Publisher Name: O’Reilly Media

Total Pages: 276

Authors: Holden Karau, Andy Konwinski, Patrick Wendell, Matei Zaharia

Price: Kindle version comes at $6.9 and Paper book from $29.52

This book has received a wonderful feedback and rating at the Amazon store and the average rating is 4.0. Here are some of the amazing features of this Learning Spark book-

  • Learn about distributed datasets, in-memory caching, and the interactive shell
  • Covers the advanced topics like Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, and MLlib
  • Teaches you to go with dedicated programming languages like Hive, Hadoop, Mahout, and Storm
  • Learn how to deploy interactive, batch, and streaming applications
  • Connect to data sources including HDFS, Hive, JSON, and S3
  • Takes you through the advanced level of Spark.

#2 Advanced Analytics with Spark

If you are clear with the basics of Apache Spark, Advanced analytics with Spark is the best option for you. Advanced analytics with Spark is another best Apache Spark book for the professionals. This suits both beginners and advanced professionals and helps to get into the analytics side with Spark quickly.

Spark BookBook Name: Advanced Analytics with Spark- Patterns for Learning from Data at Scale
Publisher Name: O’Reilly Media
Total Pages: 280
Authors: Sandy Ryza, Uri Laserson, Sean Owen and Josh Wills
Price: Kindle version comes at $24.99 and Paper book from $29.85

This Spark book is recommended for those who have basics of Spark and now want to scale. They teach you how to work with a large set of data and scale your applications. It also teaches you to deal with complex problems with statistical methods using Spark. Here are some of the features of this Spark book.

  • Help you understand the Spark programming model and Spark ecosystems
  • Teaches you the approaches to data science using Spark
  • Help you analyze the public datasets using Spark
  • Help you understand which problem needs what kind of Machine Learning tools
  • It teaches you how to write reusable codes easily and how to reuse it

#3 High Performance Spark

High-performance Spark book is also written by the co-authors of Learning Spark book and is an advanced Spark book. This Spark book will take you through the performance improvement in Spark applications. Also, this High-performance Spark book is recommended to those who have some basic understanding of Spark systems. If you’re complete beginner, go first through Learning Spark Book.

Apache Spark BookBook Name: High-Performance Spark: Best Practices for Scaling and Optimizing Apache Spark
Publisher Name: O’Reilly Media
Total Pages: 358
Authors: Holden Karau and Rachel Warren
Price: Kindle version comes at $22.67 and Paper book from $20.05

As the name suggests this Apache Spark book is mainly to scale and optimize the Spark applications. The books teach you how to run Spark queries faster and handle larger data sizes while using fewer resources. Here are some of the silent features of High-Performance Spark book.

  • How to improve the performance of Spark queries
  • Understand the choice between data joins in Core Spark and Spark SQL
  • Learn standard RDD transformations
  • Work on the performance issues in Spark’s key/value pair paradigm
  • Write high-performance Spark code without Scala or the JVM
  • How to test for functionality and performance when applying suggested improvements
  • Using Spark MLlib and Spark ML machine learning libraries
  • Spark’s Streaming components and external community packages

#4 Spark Cookbook

How we can forget cookbook when it comes to the Spark books for beginners. Spark cookbook is an excellent Apache Spark book for beginners. So, if you are a data engineer or Application Developer or someone who want to leverage the world of Spark, Spark cookbook book is for you.

Best Spark BookBook Name: Spark Cookbook
Publisher Name: Packt Publishing
Total Pages: 221
Authors: Rishi Yadav
Price: Kindle version comes at $22.39 and Paper book from $44.99

With this Spark cookbook, you will understand how to configure Apache Spark on various cluster managers in a different environment. You will learn to write the interactive queries in Spark SQL, real-time processing using Spark Streaming. It is an excellent spark book for beginners covering Spark Core, Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, MLlib, and GraphX libraries. Here are some of the silent features of Spark cookbook-

  • You can be expert at graph processing using GraphX
  • Use Apache Spark as your single big data compute platform and master its libraries
  • Learn with recipes that can be run on a single machine as well as on a production cluster of thousands of machines

#5 Mastering Apache Spark – Top Spark Books

If you want to gain expertise in processing and storing data by using advanced techniques with Apache Spark then this Spark book is for you. If you are a complete beginner to Apache Spark then I won’t recommend you this book and suggest going through either Spark Cookbook or Learning Spark.

But if you are a developer with some Spark background and want to take your Spark knowledge to next level, mastering Apache Spark book is for you. To get the maximum benefits from this Spark book for experienced then you should have at least basic knowledge of Linux, Hadoop, Scala, and Spark is desirable.

Top Spark BookBook Name: Mastering Apache Spark
Publisher Name: Packt Publishing
Total Pages: 318
Authors: Mike Frampton
Price: Kindle version comes at $31.72 and Paper book from $52.57

With this Spark book for experienced professional, you will extend your knowledge with the processing and storage tools. Here are some of the silent features of this book-

  • Learn clustering and classification using MLib
  • Experiment with Spark stream processing using HDFS and Flume
  • Learn to populate schema in Spark
  • Master the graph based Spark processing using GraphX
  • Combine and study Spark with H2O for deep learning
  • Learn how Cassandra and HBase can be used as storage
  • Integrate Spark with the third-party tools like H2O, Databricks, and Titan

#6 Big Data Analytics with Spark: Best Spark Books

Well, if you have mastered the Spark application and willing to move to the Big Data Analytics part, this Big Data Analytics with Spark book will help you most. This Apache Spark book for a beginner will help you go through the Analytics using Spark from the basic to advanced level. They have also covered the other big data tools like Hive, HBase, and Hadoop etc. for easy understanding.

The chapters shown here are very practical and led through various examples. I would like to suggest go through this book if you have some basics of Big Data technologies. You can say Big Data Analytics using Spark book as an all-in-one book for all the analytics needs of Big Data.

Spark BooksBook Name: Big Data Analytics with Spark: A Practitioner’s Guide to Using Spark for Large Scale Data Analysis
Publisher Name: Apress
Total Pages: 277
Authors: Mohammed Guller
Price: Kindle version comes at $27.99 and Paper book from $24.28

So, if you are looking for core analytics and machine learning with Spark then this book can be an ideal option. This book also has a dedicated chapter for Scala which will help you understand the Spark Analytics better. Here are some of the silent features of this Apache Spark books for beginners.

  • A beginner book for large-scale data analytics
  • Understand and implement big data analytics using Spark from scratch
  • The book also covers Spark core and its add-on libraries, including Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, GraphX, and MLlib.

#7 Apache Spark in 24 Hours

If you’re impatient, then this Apache Spark book has been written for you. Initially, the book talks about architecture, it’s relationship with Hadoop and how to install Spark.

It also teaches basics of Spark like RDD, Spark SQL, and how to use Scala in Spark for best purpose. Lately, you will learn Spark R, how to do performance optimization in Spark and several other concepts with examples. Apache Spark in 24 hours is one of the best Apache Spark books for beginners.

Apache Spark BookBook Name: Apache Spark in 24 Hours, Sams Teach Yourself
Publisher Name: Sams Publishing
Total Pages: 592
Authors: Jeffrey Aven
Price: Kindle version comes at $19.79 and Paper book from $28.93

Here are some of the silent features of Spark book for beginners-

  • Q&As, quizzes, puzzles for practice and refrain the concepts you learned
  • Help you develop Spark application with Scala and Python
  • Teaches you to optimize the performance of Spark Application
  • Uses of Spark with SQL (Spark SQL) and NoSQL (Cassandra)
  • Explore the real-time messaging systems like Kafka
  • Programming with Spark API along with several high-level concepts

This is a perfect book for all who want to start with Apache Spark from scratch quickly.

#8 Spark in Action

If you are someone who wants to learn Spark from a practical point of view and not theory, Spark in Action book is for you. This Spark book will help you write Spark applications using Scala and Python and also help you understand RDD, SparkSQL, and APIs. Spark in action is perfectly optimized for Spark 2.0.

Spark BookBook Name: Spark in Action
Publisher Name: Manning Publications
Total Pages: 472
Authors: Petar Zecevic and Marko Bonaci
Price: Paper book starts at $36.77

This Spark book for beginners and experienced is a perfect source to study practically. There are some silent features of this book which you can find below.

  • Updated for Spark 2.0
  • Real-life case studies
  • Spark DevOps with Docker
  • Examples in Scala, and online in Java and Python

#9 Pro Spark Streaming

Real-time analysis is one of the key components in Spark analysis and pro-Spark Streaming is one of the best sources for real-time data analysis. This Apache Spark book for beginner is a perfect place to learn how to deploy a Spark real-time data processing application from Scratch. You can find a number of examples and use cases like the economy, finance, online advertising, telecommunication, and IoT.

Best Spark BookBook Name: Pro Spark Streaming: The Zen of Real-Time Analytics Using Apache Spark
Publisher Name: Apress
Total Pages: 230
Authors: Zubair Nabi
Price: Kindle version is available at $22.24 and Paper book starts at $20.26

Pro Spark Streaming is a perfect book for Data scientists, big data experts, BI analysts, and data architects. Here are some of the features of this Pro Spark Streaming book-

  • Find best Spark Streaming application development and best practices
  • Ingest data from the sources like MQTT, Flume, Kafka, Twitter, and a custom HTTP receiver
  • Optimize and scale the production deployments of Spark Streaming via configuration recipes and instrumentation using Graphite, collected, and Nagios
  • Integrate Spark application with HBase, Cassandra, and Redis
  • Many real-time examples and case studies

#10 Spark: Big Data Cluster Computing in Production

This book is for those Spark professionals who are having some experience with Spark system. If you are completely new to Spark, you can follow the above listed Apache Spark listed books.

But if you are versed with Spark or at least basics of it, this Spark book for experienced professional you can read for big-data clustering in production. This book also covers the advanced concepts like Spark SQL, Tachyon, Kerberos, ML Lib, YARN, and Mesos.

Big Data Spark BookBook Name: Spark: Big Data Cluster Computing in Production
Publisher Name: Wiley
Total Pages: 216
Authors: Ilya Ganelin, Ema Orhian, Kai Sasaki, and Brennon York.
Price: Kindle version is available at $6.92 and Paper book starts at $24.38

Here are some silent features of this Spark book-

  • Review Spark hardware requirements and estimate cluster size
  • Gain insight from real-world production use cases
  • Tighten security, schedule resources, and fine-tune performance
  • Overcome common problems encountered using Spark in production

Conclusion

These were the top 10 Apache Spark books for beginners and experienced professionals. No matter you’re just starting with Spark or working on Apache Spark, these books will be useful for you.

These Spark books for beginners and experienced have been designed considering the basic level and take you through the advanced concepts. Along with Spark, these best Spark books also cover SparkSQL, Kafka, GraphX, and several other advanced topics. You will come to know about deploying Spark application, installation, and integration with other systems.

Further, if you want to explore more with Spark with its components, you can have a look at the following Spark free papers available at Apache websites.

  • Spark: Cluster Computing with Working Sets
  • Spark SQL: Relational Data Processing in Spark
  • MLib: Machine Learning in Apache Spark
  • GraphX: Unifying Data-Parallel and Graph-Parallel Analytics
  • Discretized Streams: An Efficient and Fault-Tolerant Model for Stream Processing on Large Clusters
  • SparkR: Scaling R Programs with Spark

You can find these Apache Spark papers on this website.

Hope you liked these top Apache Spark books for beginners and experienced professionals. Get started with any of these books depending on your familiarity level and master with Spark.


Leave a Comment