Can apache spark run without hadoop?
Spark is an in-memory distributed computing engine.
Hadoop is a framework for distributed storage (HDFS) and distributed processing (YARN).
Spark can run with or without Hadoop components (HDFS/YARN)
Distributed Storage:
Since Spark does not have its own distributed storage system, it has to depend on one of these storage systems for distributed computing.
S3 – Non-urgent batch jobs. S3 fits very specific use cases when data locality isn’t critical.
Cassandra – Perfect for streaming data analysis and an overkill for batch jobs.
HDFS – Great fit for batch jobs without compromising on data locality.
Distributed processing:
You can run Spark in three different modes: Standalone, YARN and Mesos
Have a look at the below SE question for a detailed explanation about both distributed storage and distributed processing.
Spark can run without Hadoop but some of its functionality relies on Hadoop's code (e.g. handling of Parquet files). We're running Spark on Mesos and S3 which was a little tricky to set up but works really well once done (you can read a summary of what needed to properly set it here).
(Edit) Note: since version 2.3.0 Spark also added native support for Kubernetes
By default , Spark does not have storage mechanism.
To store data, it needs fast and scalable file system. You can use S3 or HDFS or any other file system. Hadoop is economical option due to low cost.
Additionally if you use Tachyon, it will boost performance with Hadoop. It's highly recommended Hadoop for apache spark processing.