No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Azure Databricks vs Google Cloud Datalab 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

Azure Databricks
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
4.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Cloud Datalab
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (26th)
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Sr. Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Limited
Data pipelines have accelerated and support reliable analytics collaboration across teams
From our experience, Azure Databricks could be improved with simpler cluster management and more predictable cost visibility and enhanced native monitoring for large enterprise environments. We would also like richer governance features, better debugging for distributed Spark jobs, and more granular controls for workload optimization over and across multiple teams, which we have at multiple customer environments and within our organization. In day-to-day operations, troubleshooting failed Spark jobs can still be time-consuming, especially in complex distributed workloads. We would like clearer root cause diagnostics and more actionable performance recommendations within Azure Databricks. Better cost optimization insights at the job and cluster level would also help us manage large multiple team environments more efficiently.
LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
dashboards are good and data visualization is more meaningful for the end-user
Access is always via URL, and unless your network is fast, it would be a little tough in India. In India, if we had a faster network, it would be easier. In a big data environment, like when forcing your database with over a billion records, it can be tough for the end-user to manage the data. You need to have a single entity system in each environment. It's not because of GCP, but it would be great to have options like MongoDB or other similar tools in GCP. Then, we wouldn't always need to connect to the cloud and execute SQL queries. Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated. Once the data is collected, it should be easily sorted.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My pipelines are now significantly faster compared to older ETL tools, as what used to take over 12 to 14 hours to process 2 GB of source data in Synapse Analytics now completes within 5 hours using the Azure Databricks framework for the transformation part, illustrating a substantial improvement in performance."
"The concept of Azure Databricks is a very good one, especially for the data products concept and idea."
"Azure Databricks has significantly improved our ability to process data and large data sets, and deliver analytics projects faster for our customers."
"Azure Databricks gives the capability to handle a lot of big data use cases and machine learning use cases, but machine learning use cases need quite a lot of compute power, and that is where the cost spikes up."
"The best features in Azure Databricks for me are that it's easy to use, flexible, and has fast processing, and you can use multiple data types."
"Regarding the learning curve, it is a good technology; it is the first time I am working on a cloud platform, and before that, I have not worked on any data engineering tool that is on cloud, so it is good learning."
"For me, it has been a stable product."
"Google Cloud Datalab is very customizable."
"In MLOps, when we are designing the data pipeline, the designing of the data pipeline is easy in Google Cloud."
"The infrastructure is highly reliable and efficient, contributing to a positive experience."
"All of the features of this product are quite good."
"The APIs are valuable."
 

Cons

"The only concern is perhaps related to the pricing and cost that Azure Databricks incurs."
"Lower pricing is currently my only focus and I'm still exploring Azure Databricks, so it's too early to say something, but overall, I'm saying that it is the future."
"I have given the product a rating of six out of ten just because I do not use all of the functionalities, and I see some direction for improvement as well; also, every product has something to improve, and I have not used many features in this product."
"The biggest friction point I have experienced with Azure Databricks is its cost-effectiveness; for projects with less data volume, it is advisable to use Azure Fabric services instead, as Azure Databricks may not be suitable for low volume processing."
"At this point, I cannot comment on the cost being ideal; it is on the higher side, but in the cloud-based environment, compared to on-premise, it could be far lesser in cost."
"From our experience, Azure Databricks could be improved with simpler cluster management and more predictable cost visibility and enhanced native monitoring for large enterprise environments."
"The product must be made more user-friendly."
"Connectivity challenges for end-users, particularly when loading data, environments, and libraries, need to be addressed for an enhanced user experience."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface. So that the initial user would use it properly, that would be a good option."
"The interface should be more user-friendly."
"We have also encountered challenges during our transition period in terms of data control and segmentation. The management of each channel and data structure as it has its own unique characteristics requires very detailed and precise control. The allocation should be appropriate and the complexity increases due to the different time zones and geographic locations of our clients. The process usually involves migrating the existing database sets to gcp and ensure data integrity is maintained. This is the only challenge that we faced while navigating the integers of the solution and honestly it was an interesting and unique experience."
"Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product is cheap."
"It is affordable for us because we have a limited number of users."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, and I would give it a rating of four out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Science Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Databricks?
Regarding the licensing cost of Azure Databricks, it has evolved quite a lot. The compute is the biggest cost, as with any other big data solutions. The storage cost is almost minimal or negligible...
What needs improvement with Azure Databricks?
From our experience, Azure Databricks could be improved with simpler cluster management and more predictable cost visibility and enhanced native monitoring for large enterprise environments. We wou...
What is your primary use case for Azure Databricks?
Azure Databricks is our primary platform for building scalable data engineering and analytics pipelines for enterprise customers. We use it to inject, transform, and process large volumes of struct...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Databricks vs. Google Cloud Datalab and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.