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BigQuery 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
4.9
BigQuery offers improved performance, cost savings, and intuitive features, with some users reporting up to 75% cost reductions.
Sentiment score
6.5
Databricks reduces costs and boosts efficiency, yet some users struggle to realize financial gains despite improved productivity.
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
7.2
Customers find Google BigQuery support effective but sometimes limited, relying on documentation, forums, and expert assistance for issues.
Sentiment score
6.9
Databricks support is professional and responsive, with users appreciating efficient issue resolution and effective assistance despite occasional delays.
rating the customer support at ten points out of ten
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
I have been self-taught and I have been able to handle all my problems alone.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
I would rate their customer service pretty good on a scale of one to 10, as they gave me access to the platform on a grant.
Principal at Sgt Suds
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
7.8
BigQuery offers excellent scalability and efficiency, supporting vast data seamlessly, though cost and integration challenges may arise.
Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for scalable, cost-effective cloud compatibility, efficient data handling, and seamless integration with Azure and AWS.
It is a 10 out of 10 in terms of scalability.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
We have not seen problems with scaling.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The scalability is definitely good because we are migrating to the cloud since the computers on the premises or the big database we need are no longer enough.
Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
8.3
BigQuery is stable and reliable, with efficient data handling, few bugs, and strong support, despite occasional slow queries.
Sentiment score
7.6
Databricks is generally stable and reliable, with occasional glitches, handling large data sets effectively according to users.
In the past one and a half years that I have been running with BigQuery, I have not needed to raise any technical support with BigQuery or with Google.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
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

BigQuery struggles with cost, accessibility, scalability, and lacks data residency, needing better integration, performance, and machine learning features.
Databricks requires better visualization, integration, pricing, user experience, scalability, and documentation to enhance functionality and user adaptation.
Troubleshooting requires opening each pipeline individually, which is time-consuming.
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
In general, if I know SQL and start playing around, it will start making sense.
Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
BigQuery is already integrating Gemini AI into the data extraction process directly in order to reduce costs.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
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

BigQuery uses a pay-as-you-go model, balancing affordability with strategic expense management for data storage and query execution.
Databricks offers competitive, flexible pay-per-use pricing, but costs vary by usage, often higher than open-source alternatives.
Being able to optimize the queries to data is critical. Otherwise, you could spend a fortune.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
The price is perceived as expensive, rated at eight out of ten in terms of costliness.
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
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

BigQuery provides scalable, serverless data processing with fast query capabilities, seamless GCP integration, SQL support, and competitive pricing.
Databricks offers scalable analytics with powerful machine learning, seamless cloud integration, and efficient data governance for rapid data processing.
It is really fast because it can process millions of rows in just a matter of one or two seconds.
Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
BigQuery processes a substantial amount of data, whether in gigabytes or terabytes, swiftly producing desired data within one or two minutes.
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
The features I find most valuable in this solution are the ability to run and handle large data sets in a very efficient way with multiple types of data, relational as SQL data.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 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

BigQuery
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 BigQuery is 8.0%, up from 7.3% 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 (%)
BigQuery8.0%
Databricks10.4%
Other81.6%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Luís Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Handles large data sets efficiently and offers flexible data management capabilities
The features I find most valuable in this solution are the ability to run and handle large data sets in a very efficient way with multiple types of data, relational as SQL data. It is kind of difficult to explain, but structured data and the ability to handle large data sets are key features. The data integration capabilities in BigQuery were, in fact, an issue at the beginning. There are two types of integrations. As long as integration is within Google, it is pretty simple. When you start to try to connect external clients to that data, it becomes more complex. It is not related to BigQuery, it is related to Google security model, which is not easy to manage. I would not call it an integration issue of BigQuery, I would call it an integration issue of Google security model.
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
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Media Company
7%
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 Business13
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigQuery?
The initial setup process is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigQuery?
I believe the cost of BigQuery is competitive versus the alternatives in the market, but it can become expensive if the tool is not used properly. It is on a per-consumption basis, the billing, so ...
What needs improvement with BigQuery?
With what I have seen in BigQuery, I had some response times problems, but then it is an analytical database and not a transactional database, so it comes with eventual consistency. I cannot have e...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about BigQuery vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.