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Databricks vs IBM Streams comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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 Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th)
IBM Streams
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Databricks is 7.5%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Streams is 2.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.5%
IBM Streams2.2%
Other90.3%
Streaming Analytics
 

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.
Ahmed_Emad - PeerSpot reviewer
Territory Sales Leader at Sumerge
A solution for data pipelines but has connector limitations
We have used Kafka for seven years. IBM streams gives you many OOTB features that can boost the time-to-market, especially when it comes to reporting and monitoring for example. Confluent is recognized as one of the leaders in this space and the main reason for this is related to the complete vision of the platform also the large number of connectors. This gives the edge and competitive advatnage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The features of Databricks have impacted my organization positively, as it has done so very efficiently since we switched from several platforms to using this one."
"Databricks is scalable, it operates three times faster than any of the other ecosystems which we have experimented on."
"It can send out large data amounts."
"It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark."
"Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R."
"This solution offers a lake house data concept that we have found exciting, as we are able to have a large amount of data in a data lake and can manage all relational activities, with all asset complaints properties available to ensure the quality of all data."
"The simplicity of development is the most valuable feature."
"The OEM Solution (Excel-medical.com) running on top of IBM Streams provides real-time clinical algorithms that can give better insight into the patient's acuity, thus cutting off time to discharge patients and inversely making sure that sick patients don't get discharged until ready."
"Easy development and deployment, Java implementation features, and the real time analyser and alarm function are the most valuable features for us."
"As a result, the TELCO company was able to cut down the time it took to respond to customer needs and there were fewer complaints."
"The product has enabled us to create solutions to client problems that would have either been impossible or very expensive/difficult using other technologies."
 

Cons

"Would be helpful to have additional licensing options."
"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."
"Scalability is an area with certain shortcomings. The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"It would be better if it were faster. It can be slow, and it can be super fast for big data."
"Anyone who doesn't know SQL may find the product difficult to work with."
"The user experience can be improved. It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."
"Doesn't provide a lot of credits or trial options."
"The product could be improved by offering an expansion of their visualization capabilities, which currently assists in development in their notebook environment."
"I’d like to see a tool kit specifically targeted at incremental machine learning. It’s already great for scoring previously trained models, but dynamically updating models is currently more of a 'grow your own' kind of thing."
"The development IDE sometimes crashes and freezes."
"The price and versatility of this product need to improve - it is not inexpensive."
"We had some stability issues where we used embedded Zookeeper in production."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."
"I do not exactly know the costs, but one of our clients pays between $100 USD and $200 USD monthly."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
"We pay as we go, so there isn't a fixed price. It's charged by the unit. I don't have any details detail about how they measure this, but it should be a mix between processing and quantity of data handled. We run a simulation based on our use cases, which gives us an estimate. We've been monitoring this, and the costs have met our expectations."
"We implement this solution on behalf of our customers who have their own Azure subscription and they pay for Databricks themselves. The pricing is more expensive if you have large volumes of data."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise58
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...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
IBM InfoSphere Streams
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Globo TV, All England Lawn Tennis Club, CenterPoint Energy, Consolidated Communications Holdings, Darwin Ecosystem, Emory University Hospital, ICICI Securities, Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (INFANT), Living Roads, Mobileum, Optibus, Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP), University of Alberta, University of Montana, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Wimbledon 2015
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. IBM Streams and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.