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Databricks vs IBM SPSS Modeler comparison

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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
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (3rd), Streaming Analytics (1st)
IBM SPSS Modeler
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 6.8%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks6.8%
IBM SPSS Modeler3.0%
Other90.2%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

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.
RB
Business Owner at SASS GmbH
Support and flexibility enable effective project initiation and meet customer needs but deployment requires enhancement
The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a solution, and then I convert my MATLAB solution to C programming language. This I can deploy, and I can check it, and it is MISRA compatible. It is very easy to deploy it, to go from MATLAB to C or C++, which is actually needed in the car industry. In the car industry, they want to have it in the hardware. You cannot put MATLAB or IBM SPSS Modeler in the hardware of a car, but with C, there is no problem with a microcontroller. They can shoot it into the microcontroller, and I can check it with Polyspace, and it is MISRA compatible, which is an industrial standard. There is nothing similar in IBM SPSS Modeler. I made solutions with IBM SPSS Modeler, and then the customer said they wanted to make a production out of it, and it was not possible. I stopped with IBM SPSS Modeler 18. It is now 18.6 from what I know at the moment. I do not believe that there is a possibility to design a graphic user interface with it. It is itself a graphic user interface, where you put all sorts of little icons into the display.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"I don't think you can find any other tool or any other service that is faster than Databricks."
"The simplicity of development is the most valuable feature."
"Databricks has helped us have a good presence in data."
"The integration with Python and the notebooks really helps."
"The solution is built from Spark and has integration with MLflow, which is important for our use case."
"Data is open to everyone; they can access it through many channels, including notebooks or SQL."
"Databricks provides a consistent interface for data engineers to work with data in a consistent language on a single integrated platform for ingesting, processing, and serving data to the end user."
"It's a very organized product. It's easy to use."
"In the solution, I like the virtualization of data flow since it shows what goes where, which is mostly the strength of the tool."
"A lot of jobs that are stuck in Excel due to the huge numbers of rows are tackled pretty quickly."
"GUI and flow management."
"We have full control of the data handling process."
"I like the automation and that this product is very organized and easy to use."
"I used it mostly for the PCA, the principal component analysis, and I have been using that for my bachelor's thesis."
"The supervised models are valuable. It is also very organized and easy to use."
 

Cons

"The product needs samples and templates to help invite users to see results and understand what the product can do."
"This is a fairly expensive solution for any service outside of the basic package, and costs can add up quite quickly if there are large scaling requirements."
"Databricks doesn't offer the use of Python scripts by itself and is not connected to GitHub repositories or anything similar. This is something that is missing. if they could integrate with Git tools it would be an advantage."
"Databricks may not be as easy to use as other tools, but if you simplify a tool too much, it won't have the flexibility to go in-depth. Databricks is completely in the programmer's hands. I prefer flexibility rather than simplicity."
"There is room for improvement in visualization."
"From a purely technical perspective, I would rate Databricks an eight out of ten. However, there is a failure in terms of user adoption."
"The Databricks cluster can be improved."
"Databricks has a lack of debuggers, and it would be good to see more components."
"​I would like better integration into the Weather Company solution. I have raised a couple of concerns about this integration and having more time series capabilities.​"
"We would like to see better visualizations and easier integration with Cognos Analytics for reporting."
"Expensive to deploy solutions. You need to buy an extra deployment unit."
"It would be beneficial if the tool would include more well-known machine learning algorithms."
"I can say the solution is outdated."
"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"It is not integrated with Qlik, Tableau, and Power BI."
"The scalability was kind of limited by our ability to get other people licenses, and that was usually more of a financial constraint."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is a huge increase to time savings."
"The scalability was kind of limited by our ability to get other people licenses, and that was usually more of a financial constraint. It's expensive, but it's a good tool."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"$5,000 annually."
"The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten users use the server with ten licenses, it runs faster. But if forty users use the same appliance, everything slows down. People then think it's not easy to do things and prefer using remote tools like Python to extract data from the database. It's not about being expensive or cheap, but about people's knowledge and experience in how to do the work."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise60
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise32
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Modeler?
The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten us...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?
The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a ...
What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Modeler?
I have been using IBM SPSS Modeler for a long time. I am using IBM SPSS Modeler mainly for ETL. Sometimes I use it to compare the results of the modeling as compared to MATLAB. MATLAB is the main t...
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
SPSS Modeler
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Reisebªro Idealtours GmbH, MedeAnalytics, Afni, Israel Electric Corporation, Nedbank Ltd., DigitalGlobe, Vodafone Hungary, Aegon Hungary, Bureau Veritas, Brammer Group, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, InSites Consulting, Fortis Turkey
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. IBM SPSS Modeler and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.