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Azure Data Factory vs Databricks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Azure Data Factory users save time and reduce costs, achieving ROI and enhanced satisfaction with centralized data integration.
Sentiment score
6.5
Databricks reduces costs and boosts efficiency, yet some users struggle to realize financial gains despite improved productivity.
Our stakeholders and clients have expressed satisfaction with Azure Data Factory's efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies
This reduction in both time and money resulted in real-time impact and significant cost savings.
Consultant at Nice Software Solutions
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
Head CEO at bizmetric
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Azure Data Factory users praise support and documentation, but note delays and high costs in paid consulting services.
Sentiment score
6.9
Databricks support is professional and responsive, with users appreciating efficient issue resolution and effective assistance despite occasional delays.
The technical support from Microsoft is rated an eight out of ten.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
The technical support is responsive and helpful
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
They are not slow on responding or very informative.
Sales & Projects Manger at ACS
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Azure Data Factory is scalable and cloud-native, suitable for medium to large projects, despite some integration limitations.
Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for scalable, cost-effective cloud compatibility, efficient data handling, and seamless integration with Azure and AWS.
Azure Data Factory is highly scalable.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
The sky's the limit with Databricks.
Governance And Engagement Lead
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Azure Data Factory is reliable, with minor connection issues and improved stability, despite occasional backward compatibility changes.
Sentiment score
7.6
Databricks is generally stable and reliable, with occasional glitches, handling large data sets effectively according to users.
The solution has a high level of stability, roughly a nine out of ten.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Data Factory requires better integration, user interface, pricing, real-time processing, connectors, and improved compatibility with Azure services.
Databricks requires better visualization, integration, pricing, user experience, scalability, and documentation to enhance functionality and user adaptation.
Incorporating more dedicated API sources to specific services like HubSpot CRM or Salesforce would be beneficial.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
Sometimes, the compute fails to process data if there is a heavy load suddenly, and it doesn't scale up automatically.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
There is a problem with the integration with third-party solutions, particularly with SAP.
Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG
 

Setup Cost

Azure Data Factory pricing is complex, varying with data usage and integrations, leading to unpredictable monthly costs.
Databricks offers competitive, flexible pay-per-use pricing, but costs vary by usage, often higher than open-source alternatives.
The pricing is cost-effective.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
It is considered cost-effective.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
It is not a cheap solution.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I believe that in terms of credits for Databricks, we're spending between £15,000 and £20,000 a month.
Governance And Engagement Lead
 

Valuable Features

Azure Data Factory excels with scalability, ease of use, robust data transformations, seamless orchestration, and extensive connector support.
Databricks offers scalable analytics with powerful machine learning, seamless cloud integration, and efficient data governance for rapid data processing.
It connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
The platform excels in handling major datasets, particularly when working with Power BI for reporting purposes.
Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies
Regarding the integration feature in Azure Data Factory, the integration part is excellent; we have major source connectors, so we can integrate the data from different data sources and also perform basic transformation while transforming, which is a great feature in Azure Data Factory.
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd)
Databricks
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 5.4%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 10.4%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Data Factory5.4%
Databricks10.4%
Other84.2%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

KandaswamyMuthukrishnan - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Integrates diverse data sources and streamlines ETL processes effectively
Regarding potential areas of improvement for Azure Data Factory, there is a need for better data transformation, especially since many people are now depending on DataBricks more for connectivity and data integration. Azure Data Factory should consider how to enhance integration or filtering for more transformations, such as integrating with Spark clusters. I am satisfied with Azure Data Factory so far, but I suggest integrating some AI functionality to analyze data during the transition itself, providing insights such as null records, common records, and duplicates without running a separate pipeline or job. The monitoring tools in Azure Data Factory are helpful for optimizing data pipelines; while the current feature is adequate, they can improve by creating a live dashboard to see the online process, including how much percentage has been completed, which will be very helpful for people who are monitoring the pipeline.
SimonRobinson - PeerSpot reviewer
Governance And Engagement Lead
Improved data governance has enabled sensitive data tracking but cost management still needs work
I believe we could improve Databricks integration with cloud service providers. The impact of our current integration has not been particularly good, and it's becoming very expensive for us. The inefficiencies in our implementation, such as not shutting down warehouses when they're not in use or reserving the right number of credits, have led to increased costs. We made several beginner mistakes, such as not taking advantage of incremental loading and running overly complicated queries all the time. We should be using ETL tools to help us instead of doing it directly in Databricks. We need more experienced professionals to manage Databricks effectively, as it's not as forgiving as other platforms such as Snowflake. I think introducing customer repositories would facilitate easier implementation with Databricks.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.