Databricks Reviews

I am a data scientist here and that is my official role. I own the company. Our team is quite small at this point. We have around five people on the team and we are working with about five different businesses. The projects we get from them are massive undertakings. Each of us on the team takes multiple roles in our company and we use multiple tools to help best serve our clients. We are trying to look at creative ways that different solutions can be integrated and we try to understand what products we can use to create solutions for client companies that will be effective in meeting their needs.  

We are personally using Databricks for certain projects where we want to consider creating intelligent solutions. I have been working on Databricks as part of my role in this company, trying to see if there are any kind of standard products that we can use with it to create solutions. We know that Databricks integrates with Airflow, so that is something that we are exploring right now as a potential solution for enabling a creative response. We are exploring the cloud as an option. Databricks is available in Azure and we are currently figuring out the viability of using that as a cloud platform. So we are exploring the way Databricks and Azure integrate at the same time to give us this type of flexibility.  

What we use it for right now is more like asset management. If we have a lot of assets and we get a lot of real-time data, we certainly want to do some processing on some of this data, but you do not want to have to work on all of it in real-time. That is why we use Databricks. We push the data from Azure through Databricks and work on the data algorithm in Databricks and execute it from Azure with probably an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) or something of that sort. It intelligently offloads real-time processing.  

Of the available feature set, I like the Imageflow feature a lot. It is very interesting. It gives me clarity on the execution of a process. I can draw the complete flow from start to finish in the exact way that I want it to execute. It is more visual and it is also easier for the people in businesses where I make presentations to understand.  

When I demonstrate a process to a business and show them the approach I am taking using code and technical language, then of course not many are going to understand that. But when I show them the process in terms of the graphical layout Imageflow helps provide, then they will be able to understand it much easier. They understand why I am choosing a particular way of executing the process and why I am taking certain steps in the way I have chosen to do it. The point is to help other people understand the solution more clearly.  

I think the automatic categorization of variables needs to be improved. The current functionality is not always efficiently identifying the features of the data that is collected. Probably that is the only thing I can think of. Apart from that, I have not explored the product enough yet to go into more depth because there is only one asset project that I have taken on right now. Because I own this company, I have been doing more to run it than to explore this product very deeply. But when you get any form of data inside there, if it could understand what type of variables there are and what features the data has, it would help massively in taking processing to the next step. If it does not exactly identify the variables you may have to modify them a little. Apart from working with Databricks to understand its capabilities, I am also trying to learn Apache Spark right now. Some members of my team want to work with Apache Spark as a solution and at this point, we are evaluating both and we are planning to use Spark or Databricks.  

As far as what might be added, some custom algorithm samples would be useful. All of the other products of this type — Azure, AWS, SageMaker — they all have customizable algorithms. You have the capability to implement a sort of workflow from that by modifying things in the sample and changing it to fit your purposes. Probably that is something that might help in doing some small NDP (Near-Data Processing) development. It might not help in the project directly, but it will help while we work on some NDP development of our own so that we can quickly evaluate how something is going to work. Templates or other samples could make working on things easier.  

That would also help massively in getting people to understand the potential of what the product can actually do. But I also think not many people would strongly agree with this. Many people go to the first solution they can think of that they know very well already in the IT field even if they could imagine that something could be better.  

To get the value out of this technology, people will need to come to accept it. Technical people will accept Databricks more if they understand that this is something that they can use and start working on without a lot of experience. Adopting it will take time for new users who have no experience. But to feel like they can have success with a product, they have to execute something in a very short time and see how it can work. When you talk about AI — or really when you talk about anything new — people do not initially want to invest the time in discovery. These processes do take time to learn, but with templates or samples, you get to see immediately what the possibilities are and what you might get out of it. Then when they try something of their own and are able to get it working in less than a week's time, they will be encouraged to look into the product and the technology some more.  

We have been using the Databricks product for approximately three months.  

It is very hard to comment on the stability right now. We will need more time to experience the product in actual usage to render any opinions about stability accurately at that level.  

We have not really gotten to the point of scaling and testing scalability at this point. We only have two people involved with the product. One is a data scientist and one is a data engineer.  

The initial setup was not complex at all. The documentation is good. It is clear and not very difficult to understand. Because the documentation is good, the installation is fine.  

We did the implementation by ourselves — within our team and with the help of the documentation. But I would not say that we have already deployed the model yet. This is an ongoing process, as there are certain inputs that changed over time.  

So we have not implemented the product completely, but we have gotten to advance with the product and our understanding of it. It is good, but our company is still trying to get much better data from it. At this point, it is like the data is just junk and more junk. So we are now working toward that goal of improving the result. Whenever the data result gets better, we'll try to implement the workflow to see how it performs. I would say it will probably take two to three months more before we actually get good data.  

I did have some experience with SageMaker before looking at Databricks, but apart from we have not been looking into any of the other solutions that are available. We were just exploring a few of the different solutions that the members of the team already have experience with. Most of the team came to our company with some experience using Azure, and most of them came with experience in EBS (Elastic Block Store) and some of them come with experience on various other platforms. We wanted to mine that knowledge and just explore some of these possibilities to see which one works with all of us as a team.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Databricks overall as around a 7 or 7.5. If we had more experience with it and could be sure we had a solid understanding of what it could do and the reliability, I might recommend it with a better score. I do not think I should give it more than a seven for now.  

I have recently gotten into Databricks and trained on one model. I started using Databricks because of its hardware support and all the other things that it provides, and it is easier to get into. Earlier, when I had to test some part of my code or test if it was working or not, it was not just a fair, not a full production run, but just a fair testing; I had to get a machine, raise a request, get into the whole process. With Databricks, I can just simply create one myself. I could get the resources, whatever they are required, test it out all there, and then go ahead with that, and that is why I have been using it primarily.

The most valuable features of the solution are the hardware and the resources it quickly provides without much hassle.

I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier.

I have experience with Databricks.

I think there's a duration after which our training without any activity would expire, which I think is a fair point, and that is the only place where I think this will stop. I haven't come across a lot of problems with Databricks.

The tool is not used as frequently as PyTorch. I don't know why I am comparing Databricks to PyTorch, but I think around five people use it.

I have not contacted the solution's technical support team.

Before Databricks, I used to use a cloud support platform.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

I chose Databricks over other products, considering the hardware support it offers.

A little bit of time will be needed to get comfortable with Databricks.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for business engineering.

The solution is very simple and stable.

The tool should improve its integration with other products.

I have been using the solution for around two years.

I would rate the product’s stability a seven out of ten.

I would rate the tool’s scalability a seven out of ten.

The solution is very easy to setup. I would rate its setup a ten out of ten.

I would rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten.

The tool’s performance is great. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

I am using Databricks for creating business intelligence solutions.

The most valuable feature of Databricks is the integration with Microsoft Azure.

Databricks can improve by making the documentation better.

I have been using Databricks for approximately one year.

Databricks is stable.

The scalability of Databricks is good.

We have approximately 500 users using this solution in my organization.

I have not used the support from Databricks.

We previously used Microsoft stacks. We chose Databricks because the processing power was better and it was a better fit for our use case.

The initial setup of Databricks was not straightforward. We had to do trial and error and we learned as we went along.

I rate the initial setup of Databricks a four out of five.

We did the implementation of Databricks in-house. The solution requires ongoing maintenance.

I would recommend this solution to others.

My advice to others is for them to first do a small proof of concept and then see how it works out and then take it from there.

I rate Databricks an eight out of ten.

I primarily use Databricks for data pipelines.

Databricks' most valuable features are the workspace and notebooks. Its integration, interface, and documentation are also good.

I've been working with Databricks for around five years.

Databricks is stable.

Databricks is scalable.

Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved.

The initial setup was easy.

Databricks' cost could be improved.

I would give Databricks a rating of eight out of ten.

I use this for database machine learning, to construct different models for supermarkets, drug store management, and market involvement to identify business opportunities for clients.

We provide different statistical models and use different algorithms depending on the client.

I was a Lead Data Scientist in different companies. I implement data and build and optimize processes using machine learning techniques, aided by science and advanced analytics.

Databricks allows me to automate the creation of a cluster, optimized for machine learning and construct AI machine learning models for the client.

There could be more support for automated machine learning in the database. I would like to see more ways to do analysis so that the reporting is more understandable.

It's stable.

It's scalable.

I would rate technical support 4 out of 5.

Setup isn't difficult. We used about 15 people for deployment and maintenance. We have data scientists and statisticians using this solution and doing different analyses.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

My advice is to use the different high analytics methodology, plan for the project, and recognize the different activities for the design.

We use Databricks for experimentation. For example, we do ML model building and training that is connecting to our data which resides in Azure. It offers very good integration with Azure. We've deployed some of our model inference tools in Databricks.

 Databricks integrates well with other solutions.

Databricks doesn't offer the use of Python scripts by itself and is not connected to GitHub repositories or anything similar. This is something that is missing. if they could integrate with Git tools it would be an advantage.

Along with having connections to different databases for Git tools, adding libraries for easy access would be a benefit. As data scientists, we connect to different databases and different sources of data, having a library would be useful.

I have been using Databricks for approximately one year.

The solution is stable. We did not face any downtime.

Databricks is scalable. It operates three times faster than any of the other ecosystems which we have experimented on.

We have approximately five data scientists using this solution in my organization. We are a small company and as we grow, all our data scientists would be using this platform. We plan to increase usage.

The technical support is good. We didn't need a lot of support. There were a few times we needed some help on how to do certain operations.

The installation was straightforward because it is on the cloud. The full deployment took approximately one week.

We did the implementation of Databricks in-house. It only requires one person for the maintenance of the solution.

My advice to others wanting to implement this solution is to use a cloud environment. For example, we are using Azure with Databricks. It is much better than doing an on-premise implementation.

I rate Databricks an eight out of ten.

My company is a customer of Databricks. We use Data Science products for machine learning, engineering, and data preparation.

We have between five and eight people working on coding in Databricks. Indirectly, we have 1500 people consuming the data. We have plans to increase the usage of data bricks by 30% next year.

The capacity of use of the different types of coding is valuable. Databricks also has good performance because it is running in spark extra storage, meaning the performance and the capacity use different kinds of codes.

Databricks does not always have clear updates. Often we find an update in the tool but we are not really sure what has changed. We would appreciate better communication from Databricks. It could be in the form of a friendly warning that talks about the updates. 

There would also be benefits if more options were available for workers, or the clusters of the two points.

I have been using Databricks for two years.

Databricks is stable, however, we do find some errors and don't understand what has happened. Usually, they are resolved within a few minutes. I would say it is 95% stable.

Scalability is really good.

I have not had to contact Databrick's support other than through the deployment, which they helped a lot. 

The initial setup of Databricks is straightforward and simple. It is not complex because they provide a lot of documentation. The deployment was fast, it took less than three days with five people assigned to the task.

We implemented in-house. It is difficult to find a good consultant or reseller for Databricks in Brazil.

We pay monthly on a pay as you go plan.

With Databricks, you may have a lot of devices. It is important to use each cluster for each kind of process and then not use the small clusters. Using the bigger cluster you will receive better performance and the use is closer and will save you money. 

It is important to code it in parts because if you code it all in full you could find some problems with performance.

I would rate Databricks a 9 out of 10.