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Databricks vs Google Cloud Datalab 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

Databricks
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Google Cloud Datalab
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 13.9%, down from 19.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Datalab is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks13.9%
Google Cloud Datalab1.1%
Other85.0%
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.
Nilesh Gode - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to setup, stable and easy to design data pipelines
The scalability is average. We have not faced any issues with scalability. There are more than 500 end users using this solution in our company. It is an integral part of the daily operations. The usage pattern is not a one-time thing; employees regularly access and utilize the application. We use it at a global level with a scattered user base. This means that users don't all use the application at the same time. So, around 300 out of 500 employees use the solution, and this usage is spread out throughout the day.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The simplicity of development is the most valuable feature."
"The initial setup phase of Databricks was good."
"The ability to stream data and the windowing feature are valuable."
"The setup was straightforward."
"There are good features for turning off clusters."
"In the manufacturing industry, Databricks can be beneficial to use because of machine learning. It is useful for tasks, such as product analysis or predictive maintenance."
"Databricks has improved my organization by allowing us to transform data from sources to a different format and feed that to the analytics, business intelligence, and reporting teams. This tool makes it easy to do those kinds of things."
"We like that this solution can handle a wide variety and velocity of data engineering, either in batch mode or real-time."
"All of the features of this product are quite good."
"The APIs are valuable."
"The infrastructure is highly reliable and efficient, contributing to a positive experience."
"For me, it has been a stable product."
"Google Cloud Datalab is very customizable."
"In MLOps, when we are designing the data pipeline, the designing of the data pipeline is easy in Google Cloud."
 

Cons

"Databricks has added some alerts and query functionality into their SQL persona, but the whole SQL persona, which is like a role, needs a lot of development. The alerts are not very flexible, and the query interface itself is not as polished as the notebook interface that is used through the data science and machine learning persona. It is clunky at present."
"There could be more support for automated machine learning in the database. I would like to see more ways to do analysis so that the reporting is more understandable."
"The initial setup of Databricks could be complex."
"I have had some issues with some of the Spark clusters running on Databricks, where the Spark runtime and clusters go up and down, which is an area for improvement."
"The product could be improved by offering an expansion of their visualization capabilities, which currently assists in development in their notebook environment."
"As a data engineer, I see cluster failure in our Databricks user databases as a major issue."
"In the future, I would like to see Data Lake support. That is something that I'm looking forward to."
"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."
"Connectivity challenges for end-users, particularly when loading data, environments, and libraries, need to be addressed for an enhanced user experience."
"Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated."
"The product must be made more user-friendly."
"The interface should be more user-friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface. So that the initial user would use it properly, that would be a good option."
"We have also encountered challenges during our transition period in terms of data control and segmentation. The management of each channel and data structure as it has its own unique characteristics requires very detailed and precise control. The allocation should be appropriate and the complexity increases due to the different time zones and geographic locations of our clients. The process usually involves migrating the existing database sets to gcp and ensure data integrity is maintained. This is the only challenge that we faced while navigating the integers of the solution and honestly it was an interesting and unique experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We find Databricks to be very expensive, although this improved when we found out how to shut it down at night."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"The cost for Databricks depends on the use case. I work on it as a consultant, so I'm using the client's Databricks, so it depends on how big the client is."
"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."
"It is affordable for us because we have a limited number of users."
"The product is cheap."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, and I would give it a rating of four out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Government
8%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
No data available
 

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 Google Cloud Datalab?
Google Cloud Datalab is very customizable.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Datalab?
Access is always via URL, and unless your network is fast, it would be a little tough in India. In India, if we had a faster network, it would be easier. In a big data environment, like when forcin...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Datalab?
It's for our daily data processing, and there's a batch job that executes it. The process involves more than ten servers or systems. Some of them use a mobile network, some are ONTAP networks, and ...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Google Cloud Datalab and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.