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IBM Watson Studio vs Starburst Galaxy 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Watson Studio
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
AI Development Platforms (16th)
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
10th
Average Rating
9.8
Reviews Sentiment
1.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Studio is 2.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Starburst Galaxy1.1%
IBM Watson Studio2.3%
Other96.6%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

AA
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
Automated processes improve efficiency while user interface and accessibility need enhancements
IBM Watson Studio, while powerful, lacks user-friendliness. It is not easy to use, particularly for medium or small enterprises or less experienced staff. Another aspect that requires improvement is the complexity involved in computer vision tasks. The integration capabilities have not significantly impacted workflow since there are simpler tools like Alteryx and Nine. The platform is associated with a complicated setup process and demands heavy hardware, making it expensive to scale. IBM should work on optimizing the user interface and enhancing the product's accessibility for medium and small enterprises.
reviewer2750097 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Business Intelligence at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Unified data access improves analytics and simplifies complex processes
I would like to see better alerting integrations for failures and errors in scheduled tasks and maintenance jobs. I also want support for more connectors such as Kinesis and Firehose, support for more file types such as Avro and JSON, and object storage message queue integration for object storage integrations. A single view of query execution and optimization details, rather than needing to toggle between the Galaxy and Trino UI, would be helpful. Additionally, enhanced control over account and environment variables that would be available in the Enterprise edition would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has greatly improved the performance because it is standardized across the company."
"Stability-wise, it is a great tool."
"Watson Studio is the most complete tool for AI projects."
"The system's ability to take a look at data, segment it and then use that data very differently."
"Watson Studio is very stable."
"In my experience, AutoML is the most valuable feature of IBM Watson Studio."
"For me, the valuable feature of the solution is the one that I used, which was Jupyter notebooks."
"The most important thing is that it's a multi-faceted solution. It's a kind of specialist, not a generalist. It can produce very specific information for the customer. It's totally different from Google or any search engine that produces generic information. It's specialty is that it's all on video."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
"Starburst Galaxy has significantly improved our data architecture flexibility and performance management by solving cross-database query challenges and enabling us to utilize iceberg tables externally across our entire data ecosystem."
"Starburst Galaxy serves as our primary SQL-based data processing engine, a strategic decision driven by its seamless integration with our AWS cloud infrastructure and its ability to deliver high performance with low-latency responses."
"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."
"Starburst on Trino, combined with our SQL-native data transformation tool SQLMesh, has delivered anywhere from a two to five times improvement in compute performance across our transformation DAG."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
 

Cons

"One area that could be improved is the backup and restoration of the database and the overall database configuration."
"So a better user interface could be very helpful"
"It's sometimes easy to get lost given the number of images the solution opens up when you click on the mouse and the amount of different tabs."
"Better documentation and more tutorials could enhance user experience with IBM Watson Studio."
"One area that could be improved is the backup and restoration of the database and the overall database configuration."
"More features in data virtualization would be helpful. The solution could use an interactive dashboard that could make exploration easier."
"The decision making in their decision making feature is less good than other options."
"The initial setup was complex."
"Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"Cluster startup time is another pain point, typically 3 to 5 minutes, which is not the worst with proper planning but can be annoying for ad-hoc work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is generally reasonable and straightforward but can vary significantly depending on the specific workloads in use."
"IBM Watson Studio is a reasonably priced product"
"IBM Watson Studio is an expensive solution."
"Watson Studio's pricing is reasonable for what you get."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Consumer Goods Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Watson Studio?
IBM Watson Studio is considered rather expensive, with a rating of six or seven. The pricing could be optimized relative to the features and capabilities of the product.
What needs improvement with IBM Watson Studio?
Better documentation and more tutorials could enhance user experience with IBM Watson Studio.
What is your primary use case for IBM Watson Studio?
My usual use cases for IBM Watson Studio include data analysis and model building.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace. On the AWS side this ...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
I use the solution for processing large simulation datasets into aggregated datasets that can either be used for real-time data analysis or stored for later analysis.
 

Also Known As

Watson Studio, IBM Data Science Experience, Data Science Experience, DSx
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GroupM, Accenture, Fifth Third Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Watson Studio vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.