Amazon SageMaker vs Databricks comparison

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 6, 2024

We compared Databricks and Amazon SageMaker based on our user's reviews in several parameters.

Databricks offers seamless integration with various data sources, advanced analytics capabilities, and efficient customer service. Users appreciate the collaborative features and positive ROI. On the other hand, Amazon SageMaker is praised for its ease of use, comprehensive ML capabilities, and robust monitoring tools. Users find the pricing transparent and support team responsive.

Features: Databricks is known for its seamless integration with various data sources and platforms, collaborative capabilities, advanced analytics, and machine learning capabilities. On the other hand, Amazon SageMaker offers ease of use, comprehensive machine learning capabilities, seamless integration with other AWS services, customizable workflows, efficient model training and deployment, automated data labeling, and robust monitoring and troubleshooting tools.

Pricing and ROI: Databricks users have reported positive feedback on pricing, setup cost, and licensing. The setup cost is straightforward and hassle-free, while the license terms offer flexibility. Similarly, Amazon SageMaker users find the pricing reasonable, setup cost hassle-free, and licensing process clear and transparent., Users have reported positive outcomes and returns on investment with Databricks, appreciating its impact on efficiency, productivity, and data analysis capabilities. Similarly, Amazon SageMaker delivers positive ROI, providing value and benefits for businesses.

Room for Improvement: Databricks has room for improvement in aspects such as data visualization, monitoring and debugging tools, integration with external data sources and services, documentation and tutorials, and pricing flexibility. In comparison, users have identified areas for enhancement in Amazon SageMaker.

Deployment and customer support: Based on user reviews, there are varying durations required for deploying, setting up, and implementing a new tech solution on both Databricks and Amazon SageMaker. While some users mentioned spending three months on deployment and a week on setup for both products, it is important to evaluate the context to determine if these terms refer to the same period or should be considered separately., Customers have reported positive experiences with both Databricks and Amazon SageMaker customer service. Databricks is praised for its efficiency and proactive approach, while SageMaker is commended for its attentiveness and commitment to customer needs.

The summary above is based on 56 interviews we conducted recently with Databricks and Amazon SageMaker users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon SageMaker vs. Databricks Report (Updated: July 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon SageMaker vs. Databricks

July 2024

Download the complete report

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Categories and Ranking

IBM SPSS Statistics

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Statistics is 3.0%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon SageMaker is 8.0%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 21.5%, up from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Science Platforms

Unique Categories:

Data Mining

21.6%

AI Development Platforms

7.7%

Streaming Analytics

15.4%

Featured Reviews

Md Masudul Hassan

Agricultural Finance and IT Researcher at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University

Jan 27, 2024

Comprehensive data analysis capabilities with a user-friendly interface, providing an efficient and reliable platform for researchers and analysts

I believe that offering short-term SPSS licenses, perhaps when customer sourcing is available, could make it more affordable. These licenses shouldn't include features tailored for universities or large sales organizations. Instead, they could offer discounts or additional facilities for smaller entities to access the software. In developing countries, it would be beneficial to provide certain features to users at no cost initially, while also customizing pricing options. For example, offering basic features to the first hundred users can help them become familiar with the software and its capabilities. This approach encourages users to upgrade to higher tiers as they become more experienced and require additional functionality.

Read full review

Subhash Vaid

VP, Principal at Axtria - Ingenious Insights

Jan 26, 2024

Simplifies the end-to-end machine learning process but there is room for improvement in the user experience

Amazon SageMaker has significantly enhanced our organization by consistently introducing new features like model tracking and recently integrating with MLflow. This integration provides me with increased flexibility for experimentation, making it easier to explore and implement innovative solutions. The most beneficial feature for streamlining my machine learning workflows in Amazon SageMaker is MLflow. It allows me to experiment more effectively before finalizing decisions which enhances the progress of my machine learning projects. Amazon SageMaker's integration with Jupyter Notebooks has significantly improved my data exploration and experimentation process. The built-in IDE is excellent and has been useful from the beginning, providing a seamless and effective platform for my work.

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Sarbani Maiti

Vice President at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 6, 2022

Very easy to use and requires minimal coding and customizations

Databricks is quite easy to use and requires less coding and customizations than a solution like AWS SageMaker which I'd previously used on a lot of projects. Databricks enables more people to efficiently build and host their ML code. Another great aspect is that MLflow is already integrated with Databricks which makes a big difference. It enables us to track and monitor all our different experiments. We have mostly used the MLflow part and generic notebooks with the ML building machine learning model, as well as using Pytorch for some of our medical imaging. We were able to quickly deploy both these features without requiring anything extra.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"in terms of the simplicity, I think the SPSS basic can handle it."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the Bayesian statistics and descriptive statistics."

"In terms of the features I've found most valuable, I'd say the duration, the correlation, and of course the nonparametric statistics. I use it for reliability and survival analysis, time series, regression models in different solutions, and different types of solutions."

"SPSS is quite robust and quicker in terms of providing you the output."

"Custom tables and macros: They allow us to create useful reports quickly for a broad audience."

"The SPSS interface is very accessible and user-friendly. It's really easy to get information in it. I've shared it with experts and beginners, and everyone can navigate it."

"The solution is very comprehensive, especially compared to Minitabs, which is considered more for manufacturing. However, whatever data you want to analyze can be handled with SPSS."

"The most valuable features are the solution is easy to use, training new users is not difficult, and our usage is comprehensive because the whole service is beneficial."

More IBM SPSS Statistics pros

"The most tool's valuable feature, in my experience, is hyperparameter tuning. It allows us to test different parameters for the same model in parallel, which helps us quickly identify the configuration that yields the highest accuracy. This parallel computing capability saves us a lot of time."

"Allows you to create API endpoints."

"The Autopilot feature is really good because it's helpful for people who don't have much experience with coding or data pipelines. When we suggest SageMaker to clients, they don't have to go through all the steps manually. They can leverage Autopilot to choose variables, run experiments, and monitor costs. The results are also pretty accurate."

"The superb thing that SageMaker brings is that it wraps everything well. It's got the deployment, the whole framework."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon SageMaker is its integration. For example, AWS Lambda. Additionally, we can write Python code."

"The solution is easy to scale...The documentation and online community support have been sufficient for us so far."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon SageMaker for me is the model deployment service."

"The tool makes our ML model development a bit more efficient because everything is in one environment."

More Amazon SageMaker pros

"There are good features for turning off clusters."

"The initial setup phase of Databricks was good."

"Databricks' most valuable feature is the data transformation through PySpark."

"The built-in optimization recommendations halved the speed of queries and allowed us to reach decision points and deliver insights very quickly."

"The initial setup is pretty easy."

"We can scale the product."

"It's easy to increase performance as required."

"We are completely satisfied with the ease of connecting to different sources of data or pocket files in the search"

More Databricks pros

Cons

"Technical support needs some improvement, as they do not respond as quickly as we would like."

"SPSS is a tool that's been around since the late 60s, and it's the universal worldwide standard for quantitative social science data analysis. That said, it does seem a bit strange to me that the graphical output functions are so clunky after all these years. The output of charts and graphs that SPSS produces is hideous."

"One of the areas that should be similar to Minitabs is the use of blogs. The Minitabs blog helps users understand the tools and gives lots of practical examples. Following the SPSS manual is cumbersome. It's a good, exhaustive manual, but it's not practical to use. With Minitabs, you can go to the blogs and find specific articles written about various components and it's very helpful. Without blogs, we find SPSS more complicated."

"In some cases, the product takes time to load a large dataset. They could improve this particular area."

"Improvements are needed in the user interface, particularly in terms of user-friendliness."

"Most of the package will give you the fixed value, or the p-value, without an explanation as to whether it it significant or not. Some beginners might need not just the results, but also some explanation for them."

"Better documentation on how to use macros."

"In developing countries, it would be beneficial to provide certain features to users at no cost initially, while also customizing pricing options."

More IBM SPSS Statistics cons

"The solution needs to be cheaper since it now charges per document for extraction."

"The solution is complex to use."

"The documentation must be made clearer and more user-friendly."

"The solution requires a lot of data to train the model."

"The training modules could be enhanced. We had to take in-person training to fully understand SageMaker, and while the trainers were great, I think more comprehensive online modules would be helpful."

"Amazon SageMaker could improve in the area of hyperparameter tuning by offering more automated suggestions and tips during the tuning process."

"I would suggest that Amazon SageMaker provide free slots to allow customers to practice, such as a free slot to try out working with a Sandbox."

"The payment and monitoring metrics are a bit confusing not only for Amazon SageMaker but also for the range of other products that fall under AWS, especially for a new user of the product."

More Amazon SageMaker cons

"A lot of people are required to manage this solution."

"Would be helpful to have additional licensing options."

"I would like more integration with SQL for using data in different workspaces."

"It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."

"CI/CD needs additional leverage and support."

"The product cannot be integrated with a popular coding IDE."

"The solution could improve by providing better automation capabilities. For example, working together with more of a DevOps approach, such as continuous integration."

"The product could be improved by offering an expansion of their visualization capabilities, which currently assists in development in their notebook environment."

More Databricks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is a little bit high, which was a problem for my company."

"The pricing of the modeler is high and can reduce the utility of the product for those who can not afford to adopt it."

"More affordable training for new staff members."

"While the pricing of the product may be higher, the accompanying service and features justify the investment."

"It's quite expensive, but they do a special deal for universities."

"We think that IBM SPSS is expensive for this function."

"If it requires lot of data processing, maybe switching to IBM SPSS Clementine would be better for the buyer."

"Our licence is on a yearly renewal basis. While pricing is not the primary concern in our evaluation, as products are assessed by whether they can meet our user needs and expertise, the cost can be a limiting factor in the number of licences we procure."

More IBM SPSS Statistics pricing and cost advice

"The support costs are 10% of the Amazon fees and it comes by default."

"I would rate the solution's price a ten out of ten since it is very high."

"SageMaker is worth the money for our use case."

"Amazon SageMaker is a very expensive product."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"The pricing is complicated as it is based on what kind of machines you are using, the type of storage, and the kind of computation."

"I rate the pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price, and ten is the highest price. The solution is priced reasonably. There is no additional cost to be paid in excess of the standard licensing fees."

"There is no license required for the solution since you can use it on demand."

More Amazon SageMaker pricing and cost advice

"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."

"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."

"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."

"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."

"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."

"The cost for Databricks depends on the use case. I work on it as a consultant, so I'm using the client's Databricks, so it depends on how big the client is."

"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."

"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."

More Databricks pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

17%

Educational Organization

13%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Educational Organization

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM SPSS Statistics?

The software offers consistency across multiple research projects helping us with predictive analytics capabilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Statistics?

While the pricing of the product may be higher, the accompanying service and features justify the investment. However...

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What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Statistics?

In some cases, the product takes time to load a large dataset. They could improve this particular area.

See all answers

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 designe...

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What do you like most about Amazon SageMaker?

We've had experience with unique ML projects using SageMaker. For example, we're developing a platform similar to Cha...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon SageMaker?

In terms of pricing, I'd also rate it ten out of ten because it's been beneficial compared to other solutions.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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 analyti...

See all answers

What do you like most about Databricks?

Databricks is hosted on the cloud. It is very easy to collaborate with other team members who are working on it. It i...

See all answers

Comparisons

Alteryx vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 16% of the time

TIBCO Statistica vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 12% of the time

Weka vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 10% of the time

Dataiku vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM SPSS Statistics Competitors

Azure OpenAI vs Amazon SageMaker

Compared 14% of the time

Google Vertex AI vs Amazon SageMaker

Compared 12% of the time

Domino Data Science Platform vs Amazon SageMaker

Compared 7% of the time

Dataiku vs Amazon SageMaker

Compared 4% of the time

DataRobot vs Amazon SageMaker

Compared 3% of the time

More Amazon SageMaker Competitors

Dataiku vs Databricks

Compared 9% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Databricks

Compared 9% of the time

Dremio vs Databricks

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Stream Analytics vs Databricks

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Databricks

Compared 5% of the time

More Databricks Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Statistics

July 2024

Download IBM SPSS Statistics product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon SageMaker

July 2024

Download Amazon SageMaker product report

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

July 2024

Download Databricks product report

Also Known As

SPSS Statistics

AWS SageMaker, SageMaker

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

Learn More

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IBM

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Databricks

Overview

IBM SPSS Statistics is a powerful data mining solution that is designed to aid business leaders in making important business decisions. It is designed so that it can be effectively utilized by organizations across a wide range of fields. SPSS Statistics allows users to leverage machine learning algorithms so that they can mine and analyze data in the most effective way possible.

IBM SPSS Statistics Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy IBM SPSS Statistics include:

Ease of use. SPSS Statistics enables users to simply and intuitively take control of their statistical needs. The solution is designed so that analysts who do not know how to code can easily make full use of the various tools and capabilities that SPSS Statistics has to offer. Its command language is so straightforward that it does not require users to undergo special training before they use it.

Comprehensive and flexible build. SPSS Statistics is designed to be both a comprehensive and highly flexible analytics solution. It enables users to utilize a variety of integrations that make it easy for users to add features that they might feel they are missing.

Automation. SPSS Statistics makes it simple for users to automate basic tasks that they might otherwise devote too much time worrying about. Tasks like calculation or data gathering can be delegated to the system while more conceptual tasks like data analysis are given to an organization’s analysts to handle.

IBM SPSS Statistics Features

Intuitive user interface. SPSS Statistics enables users to deploy an intuitive interface that makes the process of system management simple. Among the other components of this interface is a drag-and-drop feature that makes analysis and management possible for anyone who wants to use it.

Advanced data visualizations. Analysts that employ SPSS Statistics gain access to tools that empower them to create and export data visualizations. These visualizations can be formatted in many different ways depending on what the user needs.

Local data storage. SPSS Statistics has the ability to securely store data on a user’s computer. This enables them to add layers of security that would not necessarily be present if the data was stored in the cloud.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM SPSS Statistics is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are the wealth of functionalities that it provides and its high level of accessibility.

An Emeritus Professor of Health Services Research at a university writes, "The most valuable feature of IBM SPSS Statistics is all the functionality it provides. Additionally, it is simple to do the five-way analysis that you can in a multidimensional setup space. It's the multidimensional space facility that is most useful."

A Director of Systems Management & MIS Operations at a university, says, “The SPSS interface is very accessible and user-friendly. It's really easy to get information from it. I've shared it with experts and beginners, and everyone can navigate it.”

Amazon SageMaker is a fully-managed platform that enables developers and data scientists to quickly and easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models at any scale. Amazon SageMaker removes all the barriers that typically slow down developers who want to use machine learning.

Databricks is an industry-leading data analytics platform which is a one-stop product for all data requirements. Databricks is made by the creators of Apache Spark, Delta Lake, ML Flow, and Koalas. It builds on these technologies to deliver a true lakehouse data architecture, making it a robust platform that is reliable, scalable, and fast. Databricks speeds up innovations by synthesizing storage, engineering, business operations, security, and data science.

Databricks is integrated with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform. This enables users to easily manage a colossal amount of data and to continuously train and deploy machine learning models for AI applications. The platform handles all analytic deployments, ranging from ETL to models training and deployment.

Databricks deciphers the complexities of processing data to empower data scientists, engineers, and analysts with a simple collaborative environment to run interactive and scheduled data analysis workloads. The program takes advantage of AI’s cost-effectivity, flexibility, and cloud storage.

Databricks Key Features

Some of Databricks key features include:

Cloud-native: Works well on any prominent cloud provider.
Data storage: Stores a broad range of data, including structured, unstructured, and streaming.
Self-governance: Built-in governance and security controls.
Flexibility: Flexible for small-scale jobs as well as running large-scale jobs like Big Data processing because it’s built from Spark and is specifically optimized for Cloud environments.
Data science tools: Production-ready data tooling, from engineering to BI, AI, and ML.
Familiar languages: While Databricks is Spark-based, it allows commonly used programming languages like R, SQL, Scala, and Python to be used.
Team sharing workspaces: Creates an environment that provides interactive workspaces for collaboration, which allow multiple members to collaborate for data model creation, machine learning, and data extraction.
Data source: Performs limitless Big Data analytics by connecting to Cloud providers AWS, Azure, and Google, as well as on-premises SQL servers, JSON and CSV.

Reviews from Real Users

Databricks stands out from its competitors for several reasons. Two striking features are its collaborative ability and its ability to streamline multiple programming languages.

PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features. A Chief Research Officer in consumer goods writes, “We work with multiple people on notebooks and it enables us to work collaboratively in an easy way without having to worry about the infrastructure. I think the solution is very intuitive, very easy to use. And that's what you pay for.”

A business intelligence coordinator in construction notes, “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.”

An Associate Manager who works in consultancy mentions, “The technology that allows us to write scripts within the solution is extremely beneficial. If I was, for example, able to script in SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python, I would be able to use my knowledge to make a script in this solution. It is very user-friendly and you can also process the records and validation point of view. The ability to migrate from one environment to another is useful.”

Sample Customers

LDB Group, RightShip, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Capgemini Consulting, TEAC Corporation, Ironside, nViso SA, Razorsight, Si.mobil, University Hospitals of Leicester, CROOZ Inc., GFS Fundraising Solutions, Nedbank Ltd., IDS-TILDA

DigitalGlobe, Thomson Reuters Center for AI and Cognitive Computing, Hotels.com, GE Healthcare, Tinder, Intuit

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware

Buyer's Guide

Amazon SageMaker vs. Databricks

July 2024

Free Report: Amazon SageMaker vs. Databricks

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SageMaker vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.

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