Databricks vs IBM Planning Analytics comparison

The compared Databricks and IBM solutions aren't in the same category. Databricks is ranked #7 in CDW , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 8.4% mindshare in the category. IBM is ranked #3 in BPM , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 8.7% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Databricks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Databricks

Read 88 Databricks reviews

2,196 Views
1,662 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

IBM Planning Analytics

Read 24 IBM Planning Analytics reviews

1,812 Views
1,188 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Databricks

IBM Planning Analytics

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Databricks and IBM Planning Analytics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse.

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Buyer's Guide

Cloud Data Warehouse

April 2025

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Helped 846,617 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (7th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)

IBM Planning Analytics

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 8.4%, up 3.2% compared to last year.
IBM Planning Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Business Performance Management, holds 8.7% mindshare, down 9.2% since last year.

Cloud Data Warehouse

Business Performance Management

Featured Reviews

ShubhamSharma7

Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Gnanavel-Chakkarapani

Junior Consultant at CMA CGM

Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy

The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool. Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it. The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases. It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics. The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers. The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate them ten out of ten."

"The setup is quite easy."

"The ability to stream data and the windowing feature are valuable."

"Databricks makes it really easy to use a number of technologies to do data analysis. In terms of languages, we can use Scala, Python, and SQL. Databricks enables you to run very large queries, at a massive scale, within really good timeframes."

"We can scale the product."

"Databricks' most valuable features are the workspace and notebooks. Its integration, interface, and documentation are also good."

"Easy to use and requires minimal coding and customizations."

"The solution offers a free community version."

More Databricks pros

"The most valuable feature is that it is able to slice and dice the data."

"Navigating through the data to make analysis is really quick."

"The flexibility of IBM Planning Analytics is a great feature of this solution. The design flexibility with data rules and defining calculations The ability to combine online and offline calculations are a benefit. Additionally, the forecasting features and predictive analytics is very good."

"IBM Planning Analytics is easy to use and deploy. It is quick to develop. The calculation machine is also very fast."

"The tool is flexible."

"It's a very stable, robust product."

"The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized."

"The ease of use is valuable. The fact that it's plugged into Excel spreadsheets is also valuable. It provides additional functionality where you can slice and dice the information in a way that you can't do with spreadsheets"

More IBM Planning Analytics pros

Cons

"One area of improvement is the Databricks File System (DBFS), where command-line challenges arise when accessing files. Standardization of file paths on the system could help, as engineers sometimes struggle."

"I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier."

"The interface of Databricks could be easier to use when compared to other solutions. It is not easy for non-data scientists. The user interface is important before we had to write code manually and as solutions move to "No code AI" it is critical that the interface is very good."

"I would like it if Databricks made it easier to set up a project."

"The initial setup is difficult."

"While Databricks is generally a robust solution, I have noticed a limitation with debugging in the Delta Live Table, which could be improved."

"Some of the error messages that we receive are too vague, saying things like "unknown exception", and these should be improved to make it easier for developers to debug problems."

"Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved."

More Databricks cons

"Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014. On a scale, I'd rate scalability at four, out of ten. It's difficult."

"The tool's transport layer could be improved when promoting development between environments."

"The dashboard is very poor and needs a lot of improvement."

"If we talk only about the TM1 engine, it's quite rich and possibly too rich, making it complex to perform simple tasks."

"It would have been better if the solution was not just a tool kit."

"It's wonky, and not super user-friendly with Excel."

"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The new frontend Planning Analytics Workspace is not very good, it could be improved. I like the Planning Analytics functionality but it would be helpful if it could be more customizable. You can create a prediction and receive information but you cannot do feature engineering regarding the predictive models. If this was added it would be helpful."

More IBM Planning Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product pricing is moderate."

"I do not exactly know the costs, but one of our clients pays between $100 USD and $200 USD monthly."

"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."

"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."

"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."

"The solution is affordable."

"The basic version of this solution is now open-source, so there are no license costs involved. However, there is a charge for any advanced functionality and this can be quite expensive."

"The licensing costs of Databricks is a tiered licensing regime, so it is flexible."

More Databricks pricing and cost advice

"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."

"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."

"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."

"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."

"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."

"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."

"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?

The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?

TM1 is quite expensive, and I'd rate the pricing as an eight out of ten. While we do get what we want in terms of functionalities and compatibility with other IBM tools, given the product's old arc...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?

Since I'm using TM1 as an old version of Planning Analytics, it wouldn't be fair to specify what needs improvement because it's possible these issues have already been addressed in newer versions. ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Databricks

Compared 9% of the time

Dremio vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Databricks

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau vs Databricks

Compared 5% of the time

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Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 26% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 19% of the time

Anaplan vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Jedox vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 8% of the time

Tableau vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Planning Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

April 2025

Download Databricks product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Planning Analytics

April 2025

Download IBM Planning Analytics product report

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1

Overview

Databricks is utilized for advanced analytics, big data processing, machine learning models, ETL operations, data engineering, streaming analytics, and integrating multiple data sources.

Organizations leverage Databricks for predictive analysis, data pipelines, data science, and unifying data architectures. It is also used for consulting projects, financial reporting, and creating APIs. Industries like insurance, retail, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals use Databricks for data management and analytics due to its user-friendly interface, built-in machine learning libraries, support for multiple programming languages, scalability, and fast processing.

What are the key features of Databricks?

User-friendly interface: Simplifies operations and usability.
Built-in machine learning libraries: Facilitates machine learning tasks.
Support for multiple programming languages: Enhances flexibility.
Scalability: Efficiently handles growing data needs.
Fast processing: Improves performance and speed.
Automated optimization: Reduces manual efforts.
Data visualization: Provides insightful visuals.
Collaborative features: Enhances teamwork.
Delta Lake performance: Boosts data management.
Seamless cluster management: Simplifies system operations.

What are the benefits or ROI to look for in Databricks reviews?

Efficiency in handling large datasets: Ensures smooth processing.
Interactive workspace environment: Improves user collaboration.
Integration with platforms: Provides connectivity benefits.
Performance optimization: Enhances overall system performance.
Support for data governance and security: Ensures data integrity and protection.

Databricks is implemented in insurance for risk analysis and claims processing; in retail for customer analytics and inventory management; in manufacturing for predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization; and in pharmaceuticals for drug discovery and patient data analysis. Users value its scalability, machine learning support, collaboration tools, and Delta Lake performance but seek improvements in visualization, pricing, and integration with BI tools.

Databricks

IBM Planning Analytics is an integrated planning solution that uses AI to automate planning, budgeting, and forecasting and drive more intelligent workflows.

Built on TM1, IBM’s powerful calculation engine, this enterprise performance management tool allows you to transcend the limits of manual planning and become the Analytics Hero your business needs. Quickly and easily drive faster, more accurate plans for FP&A, sales, supply chain and beyond.

IBM

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services

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