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Apache Pulsar 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

Apache Pulsar
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Apache Pulsar is 3.0%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 7.9%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.9%
Apache Pulsar3.0%
Other89.1%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1087029 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Vlaanderen connect.
The solution can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code
The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform. It operates differently than a traditional streaming platform with storage and computing handled separately. It scales easier and better than Kafka which can be stubborn. You can even make it act like Kafka because it understands Kafka APIs. There are even companies that will sell you Kafka but underneath it is Apache Pulsar. The solution is very compatible because it can mimic other APIs without changing a line of code.
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

"The solution operates as a classic message broker but also as a streaming platform."
"I like that Databricks is a unified platform that lets you do streaming and batch processing in the same place. You can do analytics, too. They have added something called Databricks SQL Analytics, allowing users to connect to the data lake to perform analytics. Databricks also will enable you to share your data securely. It integrates with your reporting system as well."
"There are good features for turning off clusters."
"Databricks' Lakehouse architecture has been most useful for us, and the data governance has been absolutely efficient in between other kinds of solutions."
"Databricks is a one-stop shop for everything data related, and it can scale with you."
"I think what I value is more about the technology itself because you don't need to have too much knowledge to be able to use the solution."
"It's easy to increase performance as required."
"Databricks is a scalable solution. It is the largest advantage of the solution."
"The solution is easy to use and has a quick start-up time due to being on the cloud."
 

Cons

"Documentation is poor because much of it is in Chinese with no English translation."
"Would be helpful to have additional licensing options."
"I would like to see more documentation in terms of how an end-user could use it, and users like me can easily try it and implement use cases."
"The pricing of Databricks could be cheaper."
"I would like more integration with SQL for using data in different workspaces."
"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."
"The solution could improve by providing better automation capabilities. For example, working together with more of a DevOps approach, such as continuous integration."
"The tool should improve its integration with other products."
"As a data engineer, I see cluster failure in our Databricks user databases as a major issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is affordable."
"We find Databricks to be very expensive, although this improved when we found out how to shut it down at night."
"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."
"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."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"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 have only incurred the cost of our AWS cloud services. This is because during this period, Databricks provided us with an extended evaluation period, and we have not spent much money yet. We are just starting to incur costs this month, I will know more later on the full cost perspective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
University
7%
Government
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise57
 

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

No data available
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Microsoft, Apache and others in Streaming Analytics. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.