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docs: update Gluten comparison with AWS Labs benchmark and Comet strengths#4873

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andygrove merged 5 commits into
apache:mainfrom
andygrove:docs/gluten-comparison-update
Jul 9, 2026
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docs: update Gluten comparison with AWS Labs benchmark and Comet strengths#4873
andygrove merged 5 commits into
apache:mainfrom
andygrove:docs/gluten-comparison-update

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Which issue does this PR close?

N/A. Documentation update.

Rationale for this change

The Comet vs Gluten comparison document referenced an older single-node TPC-H benchmark for performance and did not surface several of Comet's differentiating strengths. This updates the performance comparison to cite independent third-party benchmarking and adds sections covering areas where Comet has meaningful advantages.

What changes are included in this PR?

  • Performance: Replace the single-node TPC-H numbers with a reference to the independent AWS Labs benchmark comparing Comet 0.16.0 with Gluten 1.6.0 on TPC-DS 3TB, which found similar overall performance with Gluten roughly 9% faster, and note the wide per-query variation and our expectation that the gap closes over time.
  • Codegen Dispatch: New section describing Comet's codegen dispatcher, which runs Spark's own generated code inside the native pipeline for correctness-by-default and to avoid full query-stage fallbacks. Gluten has no direct equivalent.
  • Regular Expression Compatibility: New section explaining that Comet is 100% compatible with Spark regex by default (via the codegen dispatcher running the JVM java.util.regex engine), whereas Velox's C++ RE2 engine cannot match Java regex semantics such as backreferences and lookaround.
  • Scala and Java UDF Support: New section noting that Comet runs existing JVM Scala/Java scalar UDFs inside the native pipeline without rewrites and without forcing the enclosing operator back to Spark.
  • Underlying Execution Engine: Expand the Rust vs C++ discussion to cover Rust's compile-time memory-safety guarantees.
  • Community and Governance: New section on Comet being built on Apache DataFusion, a vendor-neutral ASF community, versus Velox being primarily Meta-driven.
  • Update the Summary to reflect the revised performance framing and the additional strengths.

How are these changes tested?

Documentation only. No tests required.

@andygrove andygrove marked this pull request as ready for review July 9, 2026 14:43

@coderfender coderfender left a comment

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LGTM

@mbutrovich mbutrovich left a comment

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Thanks @andygrove!

@andygrove andygrove merged commit d4fbc16 into apache:main Jul 9, 2026
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@andygrove andygrove deleted the docs/gluten-comparison-update branch July 9, 2026 16:52
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4 participants