**Why comparison matters**: Migration and tool choice depend on performance delta. **Spark SQL**: In-memory; Catalyst optimizer; 10–100x faster for ad-hoc. Reads Hive tables via Hive Metastore. **Hive**: On-disk; MapReduce/Tez; slower. **Scalability trade-offs**: Spark SQL scales with cluster; Hive scales but slower per query. **Cost implications**: Same data; Spark = less compute time = lower cost for same workload....
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