This paper reviews two state-of-the-art algorithmic architectures, MapReduce and Spark, and compares them from their backgrounds, principles and application scenarios. The advantages and their corresponding limitations of these two algorithms are summarized. When dealing with non-iterative problems, MapReduce, by virtue of its task scheduling strategy and shuffle mechanisms, performs better than Spark in terms of intermediate data transfers and number of files. Spark can be used to deal with iterative problems and low latency issues, as it divides a computing task according to the dependencies between the data and the task. Compared with MapReduce, Spark can effectively reduce the number of intermediate data transmissions and the number of synchronizations, and improve the running efficiency of computing systems.