---
title: "Wherobots vs. Apache Sedona"
url: "https://wherobots.com/apache-sedona/wherobots-vs-apache-sedona/"
description: "Compare Apache Sedona, WherobotsDB on your own Spark, and Wherobots Cloud: spatial functions, SpatialBench results, raster, RasterFlow, and AI tools."
published: "2026-10-04"
modified: "2026-10-09"
---

# Wherobots vs. Apache Sedona

Comparison

## Wherobots vs. Apache Sedona: three paths to spatial at enterprise scale

Most enterprise spatial work starts on Apache Sedona. As workloads grow into joins at scale, raster processing, nearest-neighbor queries, and production SLAs, teams are best served by the fully managed and most capable Physical AI compute cloud, Wherobots, or can also use a drop-in enterprise runtime for Apache Sedona.

[Talk to sales](https://wherobots.com/contact/?loc=sedona-compare-hero) [Start for free](https://login.cloud.wherobots.com/sign-up)

**Wherobots Cloud**

The context engine for physical world data, fully managed, and most capable.

**Apache Sedona**

The open-source distributed spatial engine where most teams start.

**WherobotsDB BYOS**

A drop-in replacement for Apache Sedona with enterprise support.

Feature comparison

## Wherobots Cloud, WherobotsDB BYOS, and Apache Sedona side by side

Capabilities grouped by area, from core spatial SQL to raster, Earth intelligence and perception, and spatial AI tools.

| Capability | Option A Wherobots Cloud Fully managed spatial compute, RasterFlow, Havasu catalog, and Spatial AI tools. | Option B WherobotsDB BYOS Bring Your Own Spark: a drop-in runtime for existing Sedona clusters. | Option C Apache Sedona Open source, Apache 2.0. Where most teams start. |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Fit and economics |  |  |  |
| Best for | Maximum performance, Earth intelligence and perception, managed infrastructure and catalog, and spatial AI developer tools | Enterprise workloads that must stay on self-managed Spark | Teams starting with spatial analytics, proofs of concept, Spark experts comfortable tuning by hand, and less complex workloads not requiring enterprise support |
| Cost model | Pay as you go | WherobotsDB license plus your compute | Free (Apache 2.0) |
| Infrastructure | Included: Fully managed by Wherobots | Customer managed (drop-in runtime) | Customer managed |
| Enterprise support | Included: Dedicated SLAs | Included: Dedicated SLAs | Not included: Community only |
| Spatial compute capabilities |  |  |  |
| Spatial SQL functions Vector and raster functions in the function reference below | Included: 389, including 31 exclusive to Wherobots | Included: All of Apache Sedona plus Wherobots-exclusive functions | Included: 358, the full Apache Sedona set |
| Query optimization Join strategy, skew prevention, spatial acceleration | Included: Automatic, plus purpose-built engine optimizations | Included: Automatic join selection and dynamic optimization | Not included: Manual tuning |
| Spatial joins at scale SpatialBench SF-1000, 12 query patterns | Included: Completes all 12 | Included: Completes all 12 | Partial: Completes 6 of 12 (Q1 to Q5, Q7) |
| Approximate KNN Find the N nearest features to each record | Included: Available, with optimized runtime | Included: Available | Not included: Exact comparison only, impractical at enterprise volumes |
| Apache Sedona API compatibility | Included: 100% compatible | Included: 100% compatible | Included: Native |
| Raster and out-of-database processing |  |  |  |
| Out-of-database raster Load pixels on demand from object storage or STAC | Included: Full support with managed runtime optimizations | Included: On-demand loading, caching, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF | Not included: Loads full files into executor memory |
| Raster processing and map algebra Zonal statistics, raster algebra, raster to vector, multi-band | Included: Full suite plus distributed raster tile generation | Included: Full suite with spatial filter push-down | Included: In-memory raster processing |
| Earth intelligence and perception with RasterFlow Wherobots Cloud only |  |  |  |
| Mosaics from satellite and aerial imagery Sentinel-2, NAIP, and custom sources over an area of interest | Included: Public Preview | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Computer vision inference at planetary scale Semantic segmentation, regression, patch-based processing | Included: Public Preview | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Built-in models SAM3, Fields of the World, Tile2Net, Meta canopy height, ChesapeakeRSC | Included: Five built-in models plus bring your own | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Bring your own PyTorch model | Included | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Vectorize model outputs Turn raster predictions into geometries for spatial analysis | Included | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Analytics and location intelligence |  |  |  |
| Geostatistics DBSCAN clustering, Getis-Ord Gi\* hot spots, outlier detection | Included: Built in, distributed, and tuned for scale | Included: Available | Included: Available |
| Location intelligence Reverse geocoding with Overture Maps, isochrones, map matching | Included: Included, plus PMTiles generation | Partial: Optional add-on | Not included |
| Spatial AI developer tools Wherobots Cloud only |  |  |  |
| Spatial AI Coding Assistant for VS Code Build notebooks, submit jobs, and manage workspaces from VS Code | Included: All editions | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Wherobots MCP Server Natural-language data discovery and SQL generation in Claude, Cursor, and VS Code Copilot | Included: Available | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Wherobots CLI Automate spatial workflows from the command line | Included | Not included: Cloud only | Not included |
| Performance |  |  |  |
| Performance vs Apache Sedona Measured on identical infrastructure | Included: About 3x faster on the Rust-native, Arrow-columnar runtime | Included: About 2x faster | Baseline |
| Price-performance | Included: 20 to 30% better price-performance | Your infrastructure costs | Baseline |

Sources: [Wherobots documentation](https://docs.wherobots.com/), [Wherobots pricing](https://wherobots.com/pricing/), and [SpatialBench results](https://wherobots.com/blog/wherobotsdb-is-3x-faster-with-up-to-45-better-price-performance/). Updated April 2026.

Benchmark

## SpatialBench results: spatial joins at scale

Both WherobotsDB options complete all 12 SpatialBench query patterns at scale factor 1000. Apache Sedona completes six. The six it does not complete are zone statistics within a search radius (Q6), radius joins (Q8), polygon overlap detection (Q9), zone statistics through a spatial join (Q10), cross-zone trip counting (Q11), and KNN joins (Q12).

| Capability | Wherobots Cloud | WherobotsDB BYOS | Apache Sedona |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| SpatialBench SF-1000: 520 GB, 6 billion records, 12 query patterns |  |  |  |
| Q1 to Q5, Q7 Filtering, aggregation, convex hull, and basic joins | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Included: Pass |
| Q6 Zone statistics aggregated within a search radius | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Not included: Does not complete |
| Q8 Radius join: count nearby features per building | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Not included: Does not complete |
| Q9 Polygon overlap detection and IoU | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Not included: Does not complete |
| Q10 Zone statistics through a spatial join | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Not included: Does not complete |
| Q11 Cross-zone trip counting, two spatial joins per record | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Not included: Does not complete |
| Q12 KNN join: five nearest neighbors per record | Included: Pass | Included: Pass | Not included: Does not complete |

[SpatialBench](https://github.com/apache/sedona-spatialbench) is the open benchmark for spatial query engines from the Apache Sedona project. [Read about WherobotsDB on SpatialBench](https://wherobots.com/blog/wherobotsdb-is-3x-faster-with-up-to-45-better-price-performance/).

## How to choose

### Your Sedona code comes with you

Wherobots Cloud is the fastest way to run spatial in production, with WherobotsDB, RasterFlow, and the Havasu Catalog in one managed platform. Apache Sedona code runs on it without changes, and teams that must stay on their own Spark clusters run the same code on WherobotsDB BYOS.

![](https://wherobots.com/wp-content/themes/wherobots/blocks/cards-grid/img/mask.svg)

### Raster and Earth intelligence

Out-of-database raster comes with both WherobotsDB options. RasterFlow, Earth intelligence and perception as a service that turns imagery into physical-world features, runs in Wherobots Cloud.

![](https://wherobots.com/wp-content/themes/wherobots/blocks/cards-grid/img/mask.svg)

### Spatial AI developer tools

The Spatial AI Coding Assistant, MCP Server, and CLI come with Wherobots Cloud and put spatial analysis within reach of the whole team.

![](https://wherobots.com/wp-content/themes/wherobots/blocks/cards-grid/img/mask.svg)

### Infrastructure control and data residency

If compute must stay on your own infrastructure for compliance, procurement, or architecture reasons, WherobotsDB BYOS adds enterprise spatial without a managed platform.

![](https://wherobots.com/wp-content/themes/wherobots/blocks/cards-grid/img/mask.svg)

Function reference

## Every spatial SQL function, by platform

Search 389 Apache Sedona and WherobotsDB functions across 32 categories, filter by vector or raster, and see where each one runs. Need a function that is not listed? Wherobots adds custom ST\_ and RS\_ functions for customers on request.

| Function | Category | Apache Sedona | WherobotsDB BYOS | Wherobots Cloud | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [ExpandAddress](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/address/ExpandAddress) | Address Functions | Available | Available | Available | libpostal address expansion |
| [ParseAddress](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/address/ParseAddress) | Address Functions | Available | Available | Available | libpostal address parsing |
| [ST_GetReverseGeocodingLayers](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/address/ST_GetReverseGeocodingLayers) | Address Functions | Not available | Available | Available | layers available to ST_ReverseGeocode |
| [ST_ReverseGeocode](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/address/ST_ReverseGeocode) | Address Functions | Not available | Available | Available | address for a geometry |
| [ST_Affine](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_Affine) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | general affine transformation |
| [ST_Rotate](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_Rotate) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | rotate geometry; Wherobots supports custom origin |
| [ST_RotateX](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_RotateX) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | rotate around X axis |
| [ST_RotateY](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_RotateY) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | rotate around Y axis |
| [ST_Scale](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_Scale) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | scale geometry |
| [ST_ScaleGeom](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_ScaleGeom) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | scale using factor geometry |
| [ST_Translate](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/affine-transformations/ST_Translate) | Affine Transformations | Available | Available | Available | translate geometry by offsets |
| [ST_Analyze_Aggr](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_Analyze_Aggr) | Aggregate Functions | Not available | Not available | Available | aggregate geometry statistics |
| [ST_Collect_Agg](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_Collect_Agg) | Aggregate Functions | Available | Available | Available | collects without dissolving |
| [ST_Envelope_Agg](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_Envelope_Agg) | Aggregate Functions | Available | Available | Available | return aggregate bounding envelope |
| [ST_Intersection_Agg](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_Intersection_Agg) | Aggregate Functions | Available | Available | Available | aggregate polygon intersection |
| [ST_Union_Agg](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_Union_Agg) | Aggregate Functions | Available | Available | Available | compute aggregate union |
| [ST_3DExtent](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_3DExtent) | Aggregate Functions | Available | Available | Available | 3D bounding box aggregate (Box3D) |
| [ST_Extent](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/aggregate/ST_Extent) | Aggregate Functions | Available | Available | Available | bounding box aggregate (Box2D) |
| [RS_Union_Aggr](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/aggregate/RS_Union_Aggr) | Aggregates | Available | Available | Available | stacks bands from multiple rasters |
| [RS_Band](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_Band) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns a new raster with one or more bands of an existing raster |
| [RS_BandIsNoData](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_BandIsNoData) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns true if the band is filled with only nodata values |
| [RS_BandNoDataValue](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_BandNoDataValue) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns the no data value of the given band of the given raster |
| [RS_BandPixelType](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_BandPixelType) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns the pixel data type of a band as a string |
| [RS_Count](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_Count) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns the number of pixels in a given band |
| [RS_SummaryStats](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_SummaryStats) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns one summary statistic for a band |
| [RS_SummaryStatsAll](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_SummaryStatsAll) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns count, sum, mean, standard deviation, min, and max for a band |
| [RS_ZonalStats](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_ZonalStats) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns one statistic computed over a zone geometry |
| [RS_ZonalStatsAll](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_ZonalStatsAll) | Band Accessors | Available | Available | Available | returns a struct of statistics computed over a zone geometry |
| [RS_ZonalStatsAllBands](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/raster-data/band-accessors/RS_ZonalStatsAllBands) | Band Accessors | Not available | Available | Available | zonal statistics for all bands in one call |
| [ST_BoundingDiagonal](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_BoundingDiagonal) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | diagonal linestring of bbox |
| [ST_Envelope](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_Envelope) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return 2D bounding box |
| [ST_Expand](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_Expand) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | expand bounding box |
| [ST_MMax](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_MMax) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | max M coordinate |
| [ST_MMin](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_MMin) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | min M coordinate |
| [ST_XMax](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_XMax) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return max X coordinate |
| [ST_XMin](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_XMin) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return min X coordinate |
| [ST_YMax](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_YMax) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return max Y coordinate |
| [ST_YMin](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_YMin) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return min Y coordinate |
| [ST_ZMax](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_ZMax) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return max Z coordinate |
| [ST_ZMin](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/bounding-box/ST_ZMin) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | return min Z coordinate |
| [ST_3DMakeBox](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/box3d/ST_3DMakeBox) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | Box3D from two corner points |
| [ST_Box2D](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/box2d/ST_Box2D) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | planar bounding box as Box2D |
| [ST_Box3D](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/box3d/ST_Box3D) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | 3D bounding box as Box3D |
| [ST_GeomFromBox2D](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/box2d/ST_GeomFromBox2D) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | Box2D to a rectangular polygon |
| [ST_MakeBox2D](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/box2d/ST_MakeBox2D) | Bounding Box Functions | Available | Available | Available | Box2D from two corner points |
| [ST_DBSCAN](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/clustering/ST_DBSCAN) | Clustering Functions | Available | Available | Available | density-based spatial clustering |
| [ST_LocalOutlierFactor](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/clustering/ST_LocalOutlierFactor) | Clustering Functions | Available | Available | Available | LOF anomaly detection |
| [ST_ContainsCC](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/predicates/ST_ContainsCC) | Connected Components (CC) Predicates | Not available | Available | Available | spatial connected components via Contains |
| [ST_CoveredByCC](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/predicates/ST_CoveredByCC) | Connected Components (CC) Predicates | Not available | Available | Available | spatial connected components via CoveredBy |
| [ST_CoversCC](https://docs.wherobots.com/reference/wherobots-db/geometry-data/predicates/ST_CoversCC) | Connected Components (CC) Predicates | Not available | Available | Available | spatial connected components via Covers |

No functions match these filters.

Function names link to the [Wherobots documentation](https://docs.wherobots.com/).

## Wherobots vs. Apache Sedona FAQ

### What is the difference between Apache Sedona and Wherobots?

Apache Sedona is the open-source spatial engine for Apache Spark, free under the Apache 2.0 license. Wherobots is the fully managed context engine for physical world data from the original creators of Sedona. It brings together WherobotsDB, the enterprise spatial runtime; RasterFlow, Earth intelligence and perception as a service that turns imagery into physical-world features; the Havasu Catalog of open datasets, RasterFlow models, notebooks, and apps next to your own data in Apache Iceberg; and Spatial AI developer tools, including the Spatial AI Coding Assistant for VS Code, the Wherobots MCP Server, and the Wherobots CLI. Apache Sedona code runs on Wherobots without changes.

### What is the difference between Apache Sedona and WherobotsDB?

WherobotsDB is the enterprise spatial runtime from the original creators of Apache Sedona. It is 100% compatible with Sedona APIs and adds automatic query optimization, out-of-database raster, approximate KNN, and support SLAs. WherobotsDB runs on your own Spark clusters (BYOS) or fully managed in Wherobots Cloud.

### Is WherobotsDB compatible with Apache Sedona?

Yes. WherobotsDB is 100% compatible with Apache Sedona APIs, so existing Sedona SQL and Python code runs without rewrites.

### Can I run WherobotsDB on my own Spark clusters?

Yes. WherobotsDB Bring Your Own Spark (BYOS) is a drop-in runtime for existing Spark clusters, offered in the Enterprise edition. Data stays where it is and governance does not change. See [pricing](https://wherobots.com/pricing/).

### Who builds Apache Sedona?

The original creators of Apache Sedona are the founders of Wherobots. They continue to contribute to the project, which is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation community.

### What is SpatialBench?

[SpatialBench](https://github.com/apache/sedona-spatialbench) is an open benchmark for spatial query engines from the Apache Sedona project. It runs reproducible workloads such as point-in-polygon, range queries, spatial joins, and nearest-neighbor joins at multiple scale factors, so teams can compare engines on their own infrastructure.

### Does Apache Sedona support raster data?

Yes, Apache Sedona processes rasters in memory. WherobotsDB adds out-of-database raster, which loads pixels on demand from object storage, and Wherobots Cloud adds RasterFlow for mosaics and computer vision inference over satellite and aerial imagery.

### Can Wherobots add a spatial function I need?

Yes. Wherobots adds custom ST\_ vector and RS\_ raster functions for paying customers on request. [Talk to us](https://wherobots.com/contact/?loc=sedona-compare-faq) about your workload.

## See how your Sedona workloads run on Wherobots

Bring a query or a dataset and we will compare Wherobots Cloud, Apache Sedona, and WherobotsDB BYOS on your workload.

[Schedule use case review](https://wherobots.com/contact/?loc=sedona-compare-cta)

![](https://wherobots.com/wp-content/themes/wherobots/blocks/cta-banner/img/figure.svg)