Difference Between Normal Lookup and Sparse Lookup

• Normal Lookup data needs to be in memory
• Normal might provide poor performance if the reference data is huge as it has to put all the data in memory.
• Normal Lookup can have more than one reference link.
• Normal lookup can be used with any database.

• Sparse Lookup directly hits the database.
• If the input stream data is less and reference data is more like 1:100 or more in such cases sparse lookup is better.
• Sparse Lookup,we can only have one reference link.
• Sparse lookup,we can only use for Oracle and DB2.
• Sparse lookup sends individual sql statements for every incoming row.(Imagine if the reference data is  huge).

This Lookup type option can be found in Oracle or DB2 stages.Default is Normal.