: It is supported by nearly all major data tools, including Apache Spark , Presto , and Pandas/PyArrow .

: Unlike CSV, it can handle nested data structures like arrays and maps natively. Reading and Writing Parquet Files in Python - DEV Community

: Its columnar design allows for "column pruning" (reading only required columns) and "predicate pushdown" (filtering data at the storage level), which significantly speeds up data processing.

Apache Parquet is a columnar storage format widely used in the Apache Hadoop ecosystem and modern data lakes. Unlike traditional row-based formats like CSV, Parquet organizes data by columns, making it up to 10–100x faster for analytical queries. Why Use Apache Parquet?

: Parquet supports advanced compression techniques (like Snappy, Gzip, or Zstd) that reduce disk space usage and lower cloud storage costs.