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Azure Databricks vs KNIME Business Hub 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
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
KNIME Business Hub
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

VishnuReddy2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Enterprise Architect at R2V2.ai
Unified data platform has supported real-time analytics and advanced machine learning workflows
The real-time processing with Azure Databricks is supported through integration from external systems, for which we have to go with tools such as Matillion's HVR or Kafka. I have experience using HVR, high-volume replication. You get real-time data replicated into Azure Databricks using these tools. When looking for performance metrics in Azure Databricks, it depends on the processing. It can process millions of records quickly, and it is driven by the Spark framework, which is pretty strong in terms of framework perspective. The columnar database is another strong feature which helps enhance its performance. Prior to the introduction of Unity Catalog, there was no metadata capability in Azure Databricks. It was very simplistic, but now with the Unity Catalog introduction and Delta Sharing capabilities, Azure Databricks is at the top-notch at this point in time. In comparison, SAP BW is a little bit more mature because apart from RBAC, it gives data-level authorization, which is a little bit not that great in Azure Databricks at this point in time.
DG
BI Analyst at a photography company with 11-50 employees
Enables fast project development with efficient workflow modifications and promising features while offering modularity and reusability
KNIME is simple and allows for fast project development due to its reusability. I appreciate the ability to make improvements or modifications in existing workflows. Although I have not yet used the forecasting and customer profiling features, I find them promising. Another effective feature is the ability to use GET request objects to retrieve data from websites or APIs. This makes iterative steps easy to manage. It is more elastic and modern compared to SAP Data Services, allowing node creation and regrouping components or steps for reuse in different projects.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I use it personally for my purposes and for the company; I use it for internal data science with very good results."
"KNIME is very easy to handle and use. Anyone can use it, and it's easy to learn."
"The solution is very easy to use"
"Easy to connect with every database: We use queries from SQL, Redshift, Oracle."
"The hardest part is keeping a tidy workspace because of the many nodes involved. When teaching, it would be helpful if there was more emphasis on how to group nodes effectively. For example, turning frequently used nodes into a single component can simplify things."
"From a user-friendliness perspective, it's a great tool."
"The most valuable features of KNIME are its ability to convert your sub-workflow into a node. For example, the workflow has many individual native nodes that can be converted into a single node. This representation has simplified my workflow to a great extent. I can present my workflow in a very compact way."
"The most useful features are the readily available extensions that speed up the work."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"In the last update, KNIME started hiding a lot of the nodes. It doesn't mean hiding, but you need to know what you're looking for. Before that, you had just a tree that you could click, and you could get an overview of what kind of nodes do I have. Right now, it's like you need to know which node you need, and then you can start typing, but it's actually more difficult to find them."
"It needs more examples, use cases, and MOOC to learn, especially with respect to the algorithms and how to practically create a flow from end-to-end."
"There should be better documentation and the steps should be easier."
"​The data visualization part is the area most in need of improvement."
"In my environment, I need to access a lot of servers with different characteristics and access methods. Some of my servers have to be accessed using proxy which is not supported by KNIME, so I still need to create the middleware to supply the source of my KNIME configurations."
"The documentation needs a proper rework. ​"
"Though I can use KNIME in a 64-bit platform in the lab, it's missing some features. For example, from my laptop, I can use the image reader feature of KNIME. However, in the lab, the image reader node is missing."
"When deploying models on a regular system, it works fine. However, when accuracy is a priority, hyperparameter tuning is necessary. Currently, KNIME doesn't have the best tools for this which they could improve in this area."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There is no cost for using KNIME because it is an open-source solution, but you have to pay if you need a server."
"There is a Community Edition and paid versions available."
"They have different versions, but I am using the open-source one."
"KNIME is an open-source tool, so it's free to use."
"KNIME is free and open source."
"For beginners, the free desktop version is very attractive, but the full server version can be more expensive. I have only used the free version and it offers a fair pricing system. I have been promoting it to others without any compensation or request from the company, simply because I am enthusiastic about it. I am not aware of the pricing for the server version, but it seems to be widely used."
"Scaling to the on-premises version requires a licensing fee per user that is a bit expensive in comparison to R, Python, and SAS."
"With KNIME, you can use the desktop version free of charge as much as you like. I've yet to hit its limits. If I did, I'd have to go to the server version, and for that you have to pay. Fortunately, I don't have to at the moment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise29
 

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?
Overall, my experience has been positive with Azure Databricks; they have many features, but there is no use case for me to use those features, such as Delta Live Tables and Genie. In my opinion, I...
What is your primary use case for Azure Databricks?
The primary use cases for me are the reportings I have to do, so I need to ingest data from the file and create reports. I do not utilize it for real-time data processing. I have not integrated Azu...
What do you like most about KNIME?
Since KNIME is a no-code platform, it is easy to work with.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KNIME?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with KNIME?
I have seen the potential to interact with Python, which is currently a bit limited. I am interested in the newer version, 5.4, when it becomes available. The machine learning and profileration asp...
 

Also Known As

No data available
KNIME Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Infocom Corporation, Dymatrix Consulting Group, Soluzione Informatiche, MMI Agency, Estanislao Training and Solutions, Vialis AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Databricks vs. KNIME Business Hub and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.