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Databricks vs SAS Visual Analytics 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 enhances efficiency and ROI, offering scalable solutions and cost savings over traditional Hadoop with easy setup.
Sentiment score
6.3
Organizations saw varied ROI from SAS Visual Analytics, noting improved efficiency and financial tracking despite initial cost challenges.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
The enterprise subscription offers more benefits, ensuring valuable outcomes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Databricks' support is generally praised for responsiveness, though some note delays, with resources often sufficient for independent problem-solving.
Sentiment score
6.8
SAS Visual Analytics customer service is mixed, with praise for technical support but noted gaps in business needs and regional availability.
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.
They provide callbacks to ensure clarity and resolution of any queries.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Databricks is praised for its adaptability, scalability, automation features, and performance across industries but needs improved autoscaling control.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAS Visual Analytics effectively scales for large datasets and users, though high resource demands and expenses may concern some.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is highly rated for stability and performance, with occasional minor issues often due to user or external factors.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAS Visual Analytics is generally reliable but can face performance issues with large data, often due to user practices.
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
SAS Visual Analytics is stable and manages data effectively without crashing.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks should improve visualization, integration, user experience, and scalability, addressing concerns about pricing, error messages, and onboarding.
SAS Visual Analytics is complex and costly, with challenges in integration, performance, user-friendliness, and external language support.
It would be beneficial to have utilities where code snippets are readily available.
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.
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI.
 

Setup Cost

Databricks offers flexible, often expensive pricing, mitigated by cloud deployment and tiered licensing, with varied user cost experiences.
SAS Visual Analytics is costly for small enterprises, but offers strong analytics and simplicity, though consulting and scaling add expenses.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks offers an intuitive interface for data processing, integrating SQL, Python, and features like Delta Lake and MLflow.
SAS Visual Analytics excels in data visualization, advanced analytics, and user-friendly interface with rapid processing and seamless integration.
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 ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (8th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
SAS Visual Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 9.0%, up 4.6% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 3.5% mindshare, down 5.8% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse
Data Visualization
 

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.
Danna Nemeth - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides ease of use and has advanced data visualization capabilities
The initial setup can be complex and depends on the specific environment and licensing. It typically requires some time and effort to configure properly. It can be deployed as a SaaS solution or on-premises. It typically requires an installer and someone knowledgeable in business analytics and data management. Generally, it does not require extensive maintenance, though occasional upkeep might be necessary.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
 

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 SAS Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
SAS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.