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Databricks vs SAS Viya Platform 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
6.6
Databricks enabled significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements, leading to high user satisfaction and impressive ROI compared to other platforms.
Sentiment score
4.4
SAS Viya Platform enhances ROI with AI, automation, cost savings, cloud scalability, data visualization, and efficiency improvements.
This reduction in both time and money resulted in real-time impact and significant cost savings.
Consultant at Nice Software Solutions
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
Head CEO at bizmetric
I have seen a return on investment with SAS Viya Platform in the form of money saved, as this is scalable and on the cloud, whereas previously we had to pay for space and on-premises servers.
Director, Lead, Ri Technical Solutions at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
We generate revenue from the data visualization options, which is a very important key aspect for return of investment.
Biostatistician at Lambda Therapeutic Research Ltd.
The relevant metrics definitely show time saved because it is able to crunch 50 to 60,000 rows of numbers in a matter of five to ten minutes, which is a huge improvement.
Computer Instructor at Carleton University
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Databricks support is generally responsive and proactive, though issues like language barriers and indirect support occasionally occur.
Sentiment score
5.1
SAS Viya Platform offers highly rated, responsive customer service, with excellent support during migrations, despite limited community assistance.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I would give Databricks customer support a rating of ten.
I would rate customer support for SAS Viya Platform a 10 out of 10.
Biostatistician at Lambda Therapeutic Research Ltd.
we have received help whenever we have asked, and their response time is quite fast
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 201-500 employees
we got the solution on time
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for easy scalability and handling large data volumes, despite some cost and technical setup concerns.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAS Viya Platform is highly scalable, efficiently managing large data and growing user demands without performance issues in the cloud.
The sky's the limit with Databricks.
Governance And Engagement Lead
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
We have not had a problem, and it is because it is on the cloud, it scales quite well.
Director, Lead, Ri Technical Solutions at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
SAS Viya Platform is quite scalable and can handle large data volumes.
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 201-500 employees
SAS Viya Platform's scalability is great; it can be scaled throughout the project, even company-wide.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is stable and reliable, successfully handling large data volumes, with minor issues mostly self-resolving.
Sentiment score
7.6
The SAS Viya Platform is mostly stable and scalable, though some users noted occasional lags and downtime resolved by support.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
SAS Viya Platform is good, scalable, and stable.
Data & BI Architect at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
In my experience, SAS Viya Platform is stable and perfect.
Computer Instructor at Carleton University
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks requires improved visualization, integration, interface, documentation, pricing, connector capabilities, community resources, support, and automated features.
SAS Viya Platform needs interface simplification, better integration, enhanced reporting, and improved training resources for streamlined user experience.
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG
Two main improvements would transform this into a great tool: improving the UI and calculation capabilities, and merging AI capabilities.
Data & BI Architect at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The cost is also quite high; SAS Viya Platform via SaaS can be expensive compared to some open-source or other cloud alternatives.
Assistant Manager Data Analytics (WFM) at Johari Digital Healthcare Limited
In comparison, other packages I have used are more complete and less divided; SAS is quite divided, particularly with quality control, which used to be included, but now requires separate packages for control charts and so on.
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Databricks provides a flexible, cost-effective cloud solution integrating with Azure and AWS, though premium features can raise costs.
Enterprise users find SAS Viya cost-effective, though some perceive it as expensive; comparisons with Tableau or Power BI are rare.
It is not a cheap solution.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I believe that in terms of credits for Databricks, we're spending between £15,000 and £20,000 a month.
Governance And Engagement Lead
My experience with pricing, implementation costs, and licensing is that it is very efficient and very fast.
I did check with Reddit and they indicated that SAS Viya Platform is a pretty expensive program.
Computer Instructor at Carleton University
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is very positive, as the pricing is good and efficient for my organization.
Biostatistician at Lambda Therapeutic Research Ltd.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for SAS Viya Platform was smooth.
Director, Lead, Ri Technical Solutions at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Databricks excels in user-friendly, scalable data management, supporting diverse languages, with strong analytics and governance features in the cloud.
SAS Viya Platform enhances data processing with AI features, cloud-native architecture, and integration, supporting efficient, no-code decision-making.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
SAS Viya Platform has improved the speed, scalability, and accessibility of data, leading to more efficient and informed decision-making.
Assistant Manager Data Analytics (WFM) at Johari Digital Healthcare Limited
SAS Viya Platform has positively impacted my organization by saving time compared to when we were using SAS 9.4.
Saa S Developer at XpertDox
The speed and documentation of SAS Viya Platform helped me in my coursework because we were having very intense analyses done and we needed to submit a lot of assignments and analyses as quickly as possible.
Computer Instructor at Carleton University
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Ranking in Data Management Platforms (DMP)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
SAS Viya Platform
Ranking in Data Management Platforms (DMP)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (27th), Data Quality (8th), Data Governance (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Management Platforms (DMP) category, the mindshare of Databricks is 6.8%. The mindshare of SAS Viya Platform is 4.4%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Management Platforms (DMP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks6.8%
SAS Viya Platform4.4%
Other88.8%
Data Management Platforms (DMP)
 

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.
KK
Assistant Manager Data Analytics (WFM) at Johari Digital Healthcare Limited
Modern analytics has transformed large data into faster insights and streamlined reporting
There are some areas of improvement I would mention regarding SAS Viya Platform. New users may find it complex initially, as its learning curve can be steep. Understanding CAS and different components is very challenging for a new user. The cost is also quite high; SAS Viya Platform via SaaS can be expensive compared to some open-source or other cloud alternatives. There are also some limitations in Visual Analytics. While it is easy to use, it could be more flexible compared to Power BI or Tableau. These are the main improvement areas where SAS Viya Platform should focus. I would add some additional pointers about needed improvements in SAS Viya Platform. Regarding customer support, it is good, but the response time for complex issues can sometimes be slower than expected. The documentation and learning resources are not very beginner-friendly, making it challenging for beginners to navigate. Regarding integration, it could be smoother with Databricks, Snowflake, and Power BI, but it is more complex than it should be. Since updates are automatic, users are sometimes not fully aware of changes or new features that are being updated, as compared to Power BI, which publishes updates on its website. SAS Viya Platform should work on these aspects.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
Construction Company
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
 

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 SAS Viya Platform?
I am not much aware of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of SAS Viya Platform because that was handled by the administrator. However, I do not think it is too costly to use. I never did a comp...
What needs improvement with SAS Viya Platform?
One thing I expect more from SAS Viya Platform, specifically on the report side, is how the calculations work. It is not that strong in that sense. It was very difficult to build the required calcu...
What is your primary use case for SAS Viya Platform?
I have used SAS Viya Platform for almost three years in various ways, including preparing data, using it, generating extracts, and sending them through email to users. We also built an internal das...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. SAS Viya Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.