What are the advantages of Parquet over other file formats, and what type of file format is Parquet?

Parquet is a columnar storage format designed for efficient analytics. Its advantages include:

1. Compression – Columnar layout allows better compression ratios because similar data types are stored together.
2. Predicate pushdown – Queries can skip entire columns or row groups that do not satisfy filters, reducing I/O.
3. Schema evolution – Columns can be added or removed without breaking existing data.
4. Nested data support – Parquet can store complex types (arrays, structs) natively.
5. Integration – It is natively supported by Hadoop, Spark, Hive, Presto, and other big‑data engines.

Compared to row‑oriented formats like CSV or JSON, Parquet reduces storage size and speeds up query execution, especially for large analytical workloads.