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Databricks vs IBM Streams comparison

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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) (3rd)
IBM Streams
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
23rd
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 September 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Databricks is 7.4%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Streams is 2.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.4%
IBM Streams2.1%
Other90.5%
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

"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."
"Scalability is one of the main features of Databricks."
"Its lightweight and fast processing are valuable."
"Databricks' Lakehouse architecture has been most useful for us, and the data governance has been absolutely efficient in between other kinds of solutions."
"Databricks tech support has been great every time I've dealt with them, and their team is highly knowledgeable."
"Easy to use and requires minimal coding and customizations."
"Databricks is hosted on the cloud. It is very easy to collaborate with other team members who are working on it. It is production-ready code, and scheduling the jobs is easy."
"Prior to using Azure Databricks in the cloud, we had Databricks installed in clusters, and since our implementation, the performance has increased and our cost has been reduced."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Implementation of Databricks is still very code heavy."
"The pricing of Databricks could be cheaper."
"Pricing is one of the things that could be improved."
"I have seen better user interfaces, so that is something that can be improved."
"There would also be benefits if more options were available for workers, or the clusters of the two points."
"CI/CD needs additional leverage and support."
"Databricks does not always have clear updates. Often we find an update in the tool but we are not really sure what has changed."
"We'd like a more visual dashboard for analysis It needs better UI."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is okay. It's competitive."
"I'm not involved in the financing, but I can say that the solution seemed reasonably priced compared to the competitors. Similar products are usually in the same price range. With five being affordable and one being expensive, I would rate Databricks a four out of five."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"The solution is affordable."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
"Databricks is a very expensive solution. Pricing is an area that could definitely be improved. They could provide a lower end compute and probably reduce the price."
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
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise60
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...
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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: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.