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Actian ParAccel vs Databricks 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

Actian ParAccel
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (26th)
Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (5th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user263409 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Consultant at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
​The stability needs work and the leader node should be removed, but we can deliver results faster.
The speed of the application It has delivered results to our customers faster than we were able to previously. The stability needs work. I've used it for two years. It wasn't stable. There are issues. No issues yet. Customer Service: It's good. Technical Support: It's good. SQL Server…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has delivered results to our customers faster than we were able to previously."
"We like that this solution can handle a wide variety and velocity of data engineering, either in batch mode or real-time."
"Databricks integrates well with other solutions."
"Having one solution for everything, from data engineering to machine learning, is beneficial since everything comes under one hood."
"We looked at both Snowflake and BigQuery as a comparison with this solution, and we chose this product as it offered more scalability and a higher level of security, which is extremely important in our banking environment."
"Databricks' most valuable features are the workspace and notebooks, and its integration, interface, and documentation are also good."
"The most valuable feature is the Spark cluster which is very fast for heavy loads, big data processing and Pi Spark."
"Databricks has a Unified Catalog that assists with secured access and governance."
"We recommend Databricks, especially with the Azure cloud frameworks."
 

Cons

"The stability needs work."
"Overall it's a good product, however, it might get challenged over time with individual best-of-breed products."
"Databricks should have more libraries for predictive analysis and machine learning. It should have more compatible and more advanced visualization and machine learning libraries."
"The initial setup is difficult."
"The pricing is not the cheapest but it's understandable because it's a very high-end solution and easy to use, there's a lot of complexity masked away."
"Databricks could improve in some of its functionality."
"Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks."
"The data visualization for this solution could be improved. They have started to roll out a data visualization tool inside Databricks but it is in the early stages. It's not comparable to a solution like Power BI, Luca, or Tableau."
"Some of the error messages that we receive are too vague, saying things like "unknown exception", and these should be improved to make it easier for developers to debug problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
"We implement this solution on behalf of our customers who have their own Azure subscription and they pay for Databricks themselves. The pricing is more expensive if you have large volumes of data."
"We only pay for the Azure compute behind the solution."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"The basic version of this solution is now open-source, so there are no license costs involved. However, there is a charge for any advanced functionality and this can be quite expensive."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"Databricks is a very expensive solution. Pricing is an area that could definitely be improved. They could provide a lower end compute and probably reduce the price."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

ParAccel
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, The Royal Bank of Scotland, OfficeMax, MicroStrategy
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
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886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.