Apache Drill vs Dremio: What are the differences?

Introduction

Apache Drill and Dremio are both powerful data exploration and analysis tools that work with a variety of data sources. They provide means to achieve self-service data analytics, but there are key differences between the two platforms.

1. Data Virtualization Approach: Apache Drill is based on the concept of data virtualization, which enables users to query and analyze data stored in various sources with a unified interface. It allows users to perform complex queries on different types of data without the need for data integration or transformation. On the other hand, Dremio takes a hybrid approach, combining aspects of data virtualization and data acceleration. It caches and accelerates data from different sources to provide faster query performance, while also offering virtualization capabilities.

2. Architecture and Deployment: Apache Drill follows a distributed architecture, where the query execution is distributed across multiple nodes in a cluster. It can be deployed on premises or in the cloud. Dremio, on the other hand, is designed as a single coherent system, making it easier to deploy and manage. It can be deployed on a cluster of machines or run as a single node, depending on the scale of usage.

3. Enterprise-Grade Features: Dremio offers a range of enterprise-grade features that are not available in Apache Drill. These include advanced security features like LDAP and Active Directory integration, column-level and row-level access controls, and encryption at rest. Dremio also provides features like job scheduling, workload management, and data lineage tracking that are not present in Apache Drill.

4. Data Reflections: Dremio introduces the concept of data reflections, which are materialized views that store pre-aggregated or pre-joined data from the underlying sources. These reflections can significantly improve query performance by reducing the amount of data that needs to be scanned. Apache Drill does not provide a similar feature out-of-the-box but can achieve similar optimizations using techniques like query planning and optimization.

5. User Experience and SQL Capabilities: Dremio focuses on providing a user-friendly experience with a web-based interface for data exploration and visualization. It offers a rich set of SQL capabilities including window functions, derived tables, and support for various data types. Apache Drill also provides SQL capabilities but may have a steeper learning curve compared to Dremio.

6. Community and Support: Apache Drill is an open-source project supported by a diverse community of developers and users. While it offers community support, dedicated commercial support is also available. Dremio, on the other hand, is an enterprise software platform with dedicated commercial support and additional enterprise-oriented features. It also has an active community and offers a free community edition for non-production use.

In summary, Apache Drill and Dremio are both powerful data exploration and analysis tools but differ in their approach to data virtualization, architecture, enterprise-grade features, the concept of data reflections, user experience, and community/support offerings.