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Cloudera Data Science Workbench vs Databricks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cloudera Data Science Workb...
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
23rd
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (7th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Cloudera Data Science Workbench is 1.3%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 18.2%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail Peer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for data science modeling but improvement is needed in MLOps and pricing
If you don't configure CDSW well, then it might be not useful for you. Deploying the tool can vary in complexity, but most of the time, it's relatively simple and straightforward. Triggering a job from data to production is easy, as the platform automates the deployment process. However, ensuring optimal resource allocation is essential for smooth operations.
ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate CDSW's ability to logically segregate environments, such as data, DR, and production, ensuring they don't interfere with each other. The deployment of machine learning is fast and easy to manage. Its API calls are also fast."
"The Cloudera Data Science Workbench is customizable and easy to use."
"I would rate them ten out of ten."
"It's easy to increase performance as required."
"The simplicity of development is the most valuable feature."
"Having one solution for everything, from data engineering to machine learning, is beneficial since everything comes under one hood."
"The setup was straightforward."
"Can cut across the entire ecosystem of open source technology to give an extra level of getting the transformatory process of the data."
"Easy to use and requires minimal coding and customizations."
"When we have a huge volume of data that we want to process with speed, velocity, and volume, we go through Databricks."
 

Cons

"Running this solution requires a minimum of 12GB to 16GB of RAM."
"The tool's MLOps is not good. It's pricing also needs to improve."
"The integration features could be more interesting, more involved."
"The biggest problem associated with the product is that it is quite pricey."
"Databricks would have more collaborative features than it has. It should have some more customization for the jobs."
"There has been a significant evolution in databases. One area of improvement is the Databricks File System (DBFS), where command-line challenges arise when accessing files."
"In the future, I would like to see Data Lake support. That is something that I'm looking forward to."
"Databricks' performance when serving the data to an analytics tool isn't as good as Snowflake's."
"I would like more integration with SQL for using data in different workspaces."
"I'm not the guy that I'm working with Databricks on a daily basis. I'm on the management team. However, my team tells me there are limitations with streaming events. The connectors work with a small set of platforms. For example, we can work with Kafka, but if we want to move to an event-driven solution from AWS, we cannot do it. We cannot connect to all the streaming analytics platforms, so we are limited in choosing the best one."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"Databricks uses a price-per-use model, where you can use as much compute as you need."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
"I'm not involved in the financing, but I can say that the solution seemed reasonably priced compared to the competitors. Similar products are usually in the same price range. With five being affordable and one being expensive, I would rate Databricks a four out of five."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
"The licensing costs of Databricks is a tiered licensing regime, so it is flexible."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cloudera Data Science Workbench?
I appreciate CDSW's ability to logically segregate environments, such as data, DR, and production, ensuring they don't interfere with each other. The deployment of machine learning is fast and easy...
What needs improvement with Cloudera Data Science Workbench?
The tool's MLOps is not good. It's pricing also needs to improve.
What is your primary use case for Cloudera Data Science Workbench?
We have different use cases. Our banking use case uses machine learning to identify customer life events and recommend the best-suited card products. These machine-learning models are deployed in o...
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

CDSW
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IQVIA, Rush University Medical Center, Western Union
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera Data Science Workbench vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.