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Databricks vs MicroStrategy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Databricks offers cloud scalability and ease of use, but financial benefits and effectiveness depend on specific use cases.
Sentiment score
7.7
MicroStrategy offers cost-effective BI solutions, enhancing reporting, reducing maintenance, and providing significant ROI through tailored data management and visualization.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Databricks offers highly rated, responsive support with clear documentation, proactive engagement, and multiple contact options, despite occasional delays.
Sentiment score
6.2
MicroStrategy receives praise for its responsive customer service and knowledge base, though some experience delays with complex issues.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.
I would rate the technical support from MicroStrategy as nine out of 10.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Databricks offers seamless scalability across clouds, efficiently handling data sizes and increasing users, with praised ease and robust performance.
Sentiment score
7.5
MicroStrategy is highly scalable, supporting many users and large data, with some performance challenges but positive overall ratings.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is highly stable and reliable, despite minor issues, effectively managing large data volumes and supporting enterprise use.
Sentiment score
7.4
Users find MicroStrategy stable, noting proper setup and newer versions' improvements, despite occasional bugs and configuration-specific performance issues.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks.
I would rate the stability of MicroStrategy as nine out of 10.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks needs an improved UI, better integration, affordable pricing, enhanced machine learning, and streamlined, collaborative features.
MicroStrategy needs improved visualizations, user interface, and data integration to compete with more user-friendly platforms like Tableau and Power BI.
This would allow engineers to easily click a snippet and import it into the notebook, enabling quick modifications to variables or paths for fetching files, such as reading data from DBFS files.
They're now coming up with their IBI dashboard, and I think they're on the right track to improve that even further.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Organizations that are well-established and have more money can afford MicroStrategy, but startups and mid-level organizations who do not have this much budget have to opt for other cheaper tools.
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface.
 

Setup Cost

Databricks pricing is usage-based and competitive, with mixed reviews regarding cost-effectiveness, especially for heavy data processing.
MicroStrategy's pricing is high; negotiate for discounts, align licenses with needs, and consider potential long-term cost benefits.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks offers a user-friendly interface, fast querying, multi-language support, and integrated AI for streamlined, collaborative data processing.
MicroStrategy provides scalable analytics with customizable reports, self-service, real-time data, and mobile access for enhanced decision-making and visualization.
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis in my experience are the security, the metadata management, and the administration, along with the options of different workarounds available to accommodate different types of requirements.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (7th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
MicroStrategy
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (8th), Embedded BI (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 8.8%, up 3.7% compared to last year.
MicroStrategy, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.0% mindshare, down 3.6% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
AJIN S L - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 ...
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 MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface. I find the user interface lacking when compared to Power BI. Additionally, their hyperintelligence could be improved in certain as...
 

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
Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
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