Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Databricks vs VAST Data comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
VAST Data
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (30th), File and Object Storage (18th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Databricks and VAST Data aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 9.2%, up 6.7% compared to last year.
VAST Data, on the other hand, focuses on NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays, holds 6.2% mindshare, up 5.8% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks9.2%
Snowflake16.1%
Teradata8.5%
Other66.2%
Cloud Data Warehouse
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VAST Data6.2%
Dell PowerStore20.2%
NetApp AFF16.5%
Other57.1%
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

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.
Alan Powers - PeerSpot reviewer
HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years
The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Databricks is based on a Spark cluster and it is fast. Performance-wise, it is great."
"The most valuable feature of Databricks is the notebook, data factory, and ease of use."
"Its lightweight and fast processing are valuable."
"The solution offers a free community version."
"It is fast, it's scalable, and it does the job it needs to do."
"Specifically for data science and data analytics purposes, it can handle large amounts of data in less time. I can compare it with Teradata. If a job takes five hours with Teradata databases, Databricks can complete it in around three to three and a half hours."
"Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable."
"I haven't heard about any major stability issues. At this time I feel like it's stable."
"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
 

Cons

"Costs can quickly add up if you don't plan for it."
"I have seen better user interfaces, so that is something that can be improved."
"CI/CD needs additional leverage and support."
"Databricks is an analytics platform. It should offer more data science. It should have more features for data scientists to work with."
"The solution could improve by providing better automation capabilities. For example, working together with more of a DevOps approach, such as continuous integration."
"They release patches that sometimes break our code. These patches are supposed to fix issues, but sometimes they cause disruptions."
"Implementation of Databricks is still very code heavy."
"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."
"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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're charged on what the data throughput is and also what the compute time is."
"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."
"Whenever we want to find the actual costing, we have to send an email to Databricks, so having the information available on the internet would be helpful."
"There are different versions."
"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."
"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."
"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
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
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

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
Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Teradata and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.