Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

pyspark-client is the lightweight Python package for Spark Connect, without py4j or any of the Spark Classic dependencies. Currently, it is not possible to use graphframes-py with this client, as the package's __init__.py imports GraphFrameClassic, which imports py4j and related dependencies.

Describe the solution you would like

pyspark-client is much lighter when using Spark Connect, and it would be great to support it (e.g., having graphframes-py[pyspark] and graphframes-py[pyspark-client] as separate extras, and catching import errors if we can't make GraphFrameClassic available.

Component

• Scala Core Internal
• Scala API
• Spark Connect Plugin
• Infrastructure
• PySpark Classic
• PySpark Connect

Additional context

Are you planning on creating a PR?

• I'm willing to make a pull-request