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Databricks vs Dremio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Databricks
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
7th
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (1st)
Dremio
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
9th
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 18.2%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dremio is 4.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

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.
KamleshPant - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution offers quick data connection with an edge in computation
It's almost similar, yet it's better than Starburst in spinning up or connecting to the new source since it's on SaaS. It is a similar experience between the based application and cloud-based application. You just get the source, connect the data, get visualization, get connected, and do whatever you want. They say data reflection is one way where they do the caching and all that. Starburst also does the caching. In Starburst, you have a data product. Here, the data product comes from a reflection perspective. The y are working on a columnar memory map, columnar computation. That will have some edge in computation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Databricks allows me to automate the creation of a cluster, optimized for machine learning and construct AI machine learning models for the client."
"The time travel feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The most valuable feature is the Spark cluster which is very fast for heavy loads, big data processing and Pi Spark."
"It offers AI functionalities that assist with code management and machine learning processes."
"The technical support is good."
"Databricks' most valuable features are the workspace and notebooks. Its integration, interface, and documentation are also good."
"The initial setup phase of Databricks was good."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"We primarily use Dremio to create a data framework and a data queue."
"Dremio gives you the ability to create services which do not require additional resources and sterilization."
"Overall, you can rate it as eight out of ten."
"It's almost similar, yet it's better than Starburst in spinning up or connecting to the new source since it's on SaaS."
"Dremio allows querying the files I have on my block storage or object storage."
"Dremio is very easy to use for building queries."
"Dremio enables you to manage changes more effectively than any other data warehouse platform. There are two things that come into play. One is data lineage. If you are looking at data in Dremio, you may want to know the source and what happened to it along the way or how it may have been transformed in the data pipeline to get to the point where you're consuming it."
"Everyone uses Dremio in my company; some use it only for the analytics function."
 

Cons

"They release patches that sometimes break our code. These patches are supposed to fix issues, but sometimes they cause disruptions."
"The integration of data could be a bit better."
"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."
"There should be better integration with other platforms."
"This solution only supports queries in SQL and Python, which is a bit limiting."
"While Databricks is generally a robust solution, I have noticed a limitation with debugging in the Delta Live Table, which could be improved."
"Implementation of Databricks is still very code heavy."
"It would be better if it were faster. It can be slow, and it can be super fast for big data. But for small data, sometimes there is a sub-second response, which can be considered slow. In the next release, I would like to have automatic creation of APIs because they don't have it at the moment, and I spend a lot of time building them."
"Dremio doesn't support the Delta connector. Dremio writes the IT support for Delta, but the support isn't great. There is definitely room for improvement."
"They have an automated tool for building SQL queries, so you don't need to know SQL. That interface works, but it could be more efficient in terms of the SQL generated from those things. It's going through some growing pains. There is so much value in tools like these for people with no SQL experience. Over time, Dermio will make these capabilities more accessible to users who aren't database people."
"They need to have multiple connectors. Starburst is rich in connectors, however, they are lacking Salesforce connectivity as of today."
"I cannot use the recursive common table expression (CTE) in Dremio because the support page says it's currently unsupported."
"Dremio takes a long time to execute large queries or the executing of correlated queries or nested queries. Additionally, the solution could improve if we could read data from the streaming pipelines or if it allowed us to create the ETL pipeline directly on top of it, similar to Snowflake."
"It shows errors sometimes."
"They need to have multiple connectors."
"We've faced a challenge with integrating Dremio and Databricks, specifically regarding authentication. It is not shaking hands very easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution requires a subscription."
"We're charged on what the data throughput is and also what the compute time is."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"My smallest project is around a hundred euros, and my most expensive is just under a thousand euros a week. That is based on terabytes of data processed each month."
"Whenever we want to find the actual costing, we have to send an email to Databricks, so having the information available on the internet would be helpful."
"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."
"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"Dremio is less costly competitively to Snowflake or any other tool."
"Right now the cluster costs approximately $200,000 per month and is based on the volume of data we have."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Dremio?
Dremio allows querying the files I have on my block storage or object storage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dremio?
The licensing is very expensive. We need a license to scale as we are currently using the community version.
What needs improvement with Dremio?
They need to have multiple connectors. Starburst is rich in connectors, however, they are lacking Salesforce connectivity as of today. They don't have Salesforce connectivity. However, Starburst do...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
UBS, TransUnion, Quantium, Daimler, OVH
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Dremio and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.