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Azure Data Factory vs Databricks comparison

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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.3
Azure Data Factory centralizes data, cuts costs, boosts efficiency, enhances client satisfaction, and delivers a 20-30% return.
Sentiment score
6.6
Databricks enabled significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements, leading to high user satisfaction and impressive ROI compared to other platforms.
Our stakeholders and clients have expressed satisfaction with Azure Data Factory's efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies
This reduction in both time and money resulted in real-time impact and significant cost savings.
Consultant at Nice Software Solutions
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
Head CEO at bizmetric
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Azure Data Factory support is generally proficient and accessible, though response times and costs can vary for dedicated support.
Sentiment score
7.0
Databricks support is generally responsive and proactive, though issues like language barriers and indirect support occasionally occur.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as nine.
Senior Consultant Oracle Technologies at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The technical support from Microsoft is rated an eight out of ten.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
The technical support is responsive and helpful
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I would give Databricks customer support a rating of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Azure Data Factory is scalable and flexible but sometimes requires support for quotas and improvements for broader scalability.
Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for easy scalability and handling large data volumes, despite some cost and technical setup concerns.
Azure Data Factory is highly scalable.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
I did not experience scalability issues.
Principal Data Engineer at Oracle
The sky's the limit with Databricks.
Governance And Engagement Lead
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Azure Data Factory is highly rated for stability, though performance varies with setup, data volume, and resource allocation.
Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is stable and reliable, successfully handling large data volumes, with minor issues mostly self-resolving.
The solution has a high level of stability, roughly a nine out of ten.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
It gives me the accurate result.
Test Engineer at Happiest Minds Technologies
I have been using Azure Data Factory for a very long time, and I did not find too many issues.
Principal Data Engineer at Oracle
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Data Factory needs better setup, connectivity, documentation, support, performance, and UI for enhanced functionality and user experience.
Databricks requires improved visualization, integration, interface, documentation, pricing, connector capabilities, community resources, support, and automated features.
The ability to handle the largest volumes of data is another concern; if I have to manage more than one terabyte of data every day, I am not comfortable dealing with Azure Data Factory and had to switch to Oracle Data Integrators (ODI) because it lacks performance features.
Senior Consultant Oracle Technologies at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If I am making a pipeline, it should give me suggestions, such as which activity should be used, so that I don't have to remember each activity.
Test Engineer at Happiest Minds Technologies
Incorporating more dedicated API sources to specific services like HubSpot CRM or Salesforce would be beneficial.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG
 

Setup Cost

Azure Data Factory's pricing is competitive but complex, requiring careful monitoring to manage costs for high data usage.
Databricks provides a flexible, cost-effective cloud solution integrating with Azure and AWS, though premium features can raise costs.
The pricing is cost-effective.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
It is considered cost-effective.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
It is not a cheap solution.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I believe that in terms of credits for Databricks, we're spending between £15,000 and £20,000 a month.
Governance And Engagement Lead
My experience with pricing, implementation costs, and licensing is that it is very efficient and very fast.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Data Factory excels in performance, ease of use, scalability, and integration, making it highly valued for ETL processes.
Databricks excels in user-friendly, scalable data management, supporting diverse languages, with strong analytics and governance features in the cloud.
It connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
The platform excels in handling major datasets, particularly when working with Power BI for reporting purposes.
Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies
Regarding the integration feature in Azure Data Factory, the integration part is excellent; we have major source connectors, so we can integrate the data from different data sources and also perform basic transformation while transforming, which is a great feature in Azure Data Factory.
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (5th)
Databricks
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (3rd), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 5.2%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 9.5%, up from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks9.5%
Azure Data Factory5.2%
Other85.3%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Engineer at Happiest Minds Technologies
Drag-and-drop pipelines have saved days of work and now automate data movement and backfilling
If the AI features were more improved so that I don't have to provide each and every detail, Azure Data Factory could be improved in a much better way by improving the AI features. For example, if I want to fetch any data from a raw source, I need to provide each and every detail. But if I am just uploading my raw data and if AI will sync with that data, it can analyze that data and give me proper suggestions on how that should be done in a proper way. Automatic suggestions could improve in a much better way. As I have mentioned, the AI features as well as more drag-and-drop activities could be improved. If I am making a pipeline, it should give me suggestions, such as which activity should be used, so that I don't have to remember each activity. If I have used one activity, I shouldn't have to remember what activity should I use next. It should give auto-suggestions. That is why I have given a nine out of 10. Currently, I don't know about its governance and security, but in view of its improvement, I think Azure Data Factory should improve in these areas. As I already mentioned, the AI features should be improved. Also, the auto-suggestion features should also improve.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise60
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.