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Azure Stream Analytics vs Databricks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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
7.4
Azure Stream Analytics delivers 10% ROI with quick cloud deployment, minimal upfront costs, and efficient solutions for simple scenarios.
Sentiment score
6.5
Databricks enhances efficiency and ROI, offering scalable solutions and cost savings over traditional Hadoop with easy setup.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Azure Stream Analytics support is helpful, with mostly positive feedback, though communication gaps and perceived quality decline exist.
Sentiment score
7.2
Databricks' support is generally praised for responsiveness, though some note delays, with resources often sufficient for independent problem-solving.
There is a big communication gap due to lack of understanding of local scenarios and language barriers.
They've managed to answer all my questions and provide help in a timely manner.
Any time I needed assistance, they were helpful.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Azure Stream Analytics offers scalable, cloud-based connectivity; efficiently supporting growth and data transformations despite potential cost increases.
Sentiment score
7.5
Databricks is praised for its adaptability, scalability, automation features, and performance across industries but needs improved autoscaling control.
Maintenance requires a couple of people, however, it's not a full-time endeavor.
Azure Stream Analytics is scalable, and I would rate it seven out of ten.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Azure Stream Analytics is stable, with satisfied users noting challenges like diagnosing failures; Microsoft support and updates enhance reliability.
Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is highly rated for stability and performance, with occasional minor issues often due to user or external factors.
They require significant effort and fine-tuning to function effectively.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Stream Analytics requires pricing clarity, better support, enhanced data handling, query flexibility, and improved UI for user satisfaction.
Databricks should improve visualization, integration, user experience, and scalability, addressing concerns about pricing, error messages, and onboarding.
A cost comparison between products is also not straightforward.
There's setup time required to get it integrated with different services such as Power BI, so it's not a straight out-of-the-box configuration.
There is a lack of technical support from Microsoft's local office, particularly in Taiwan.
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
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.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Stream Analytics offers competitive, pay-as-you-go pricing per hour, but billing reports can be confusing for some users.
Databricks offers flexible, often expensive pricing, mitigated by cloud deployment and tiered licensing, with varied user cost experiences.
From my point of view, it should be cheaper now, considering the years since its release.
We sell the data analytics value and operational value to customers, focusing on productivity and efficiency from the cloud.
Regarding the cost of Azure Stream Analytics, I believe the price is reasonable for the tool.
It is not a cheap solution.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Stream Analytics offers real-time analytics, Azure integration, scalable data management, easy setup, and efficient SQL-like query processing.
Databricks offers an intuitive interface for data processing, integrating SQL, Python, and features like Delta Lake and MLflow.
It's very accurate and uses existing technologies in terms of writing queries, utilizing standard query languages such as SQL, Spark, and others to provide information.
It is quite easy for my technicians to understand, and the learning curve is not steep.
Clients can choose and subscribe to the service items they need, making it more flexible than IBM solutions, especially in data analytics or data governance.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Stream Analytics
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
27
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
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (8th), Data Science Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Azure Stream Analytics is 9.4%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 14.5%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

SantiagoCordero - PeerSpot reviewer
Native connectors and integration simplify tasks but portfolio complexity needs addressing
There are too many products in the Azure landscape, which sometimes leads to overlap between them. Microsoft continuously releases new products or solutions, which can be frustrating when determining the appropriate features from one solution over another. A cost comparison between products is also not straightforward. They should simplify their portfolio. The Microsoft licensing system is confusing and not easy to understand, and this is something they should address. In the future, I may stop using Stream Analytics and move to other solutions. I discussed Palantir earlier, which is something I want to explore in depth because it allows me to accomplish more efficiently compared to solely using Azure. Additionally, the vendors should make the solution more user-friendly, incorporating low-code and no-code features. This is something I wish to explore further.
ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stream Analytics?
I have no problem with pricing. We sell the data analytics value and operational value to customers, focusing on productivity and efficiency from the cloud, rather than just the infrastructure or p...
What needs improvement with Azure Stream Analytics?
There is a lack of technical support from Microsoft's local office, particularly in Taiwan. We often have to learn online, and language can be a communication barrier since not many IT staff can sp...
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...
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 is production-ready code, and scheduling the jobs is easy.
 

Also Known As

ASA
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation, Milliman, Honeywell Building Solutions, Arcoflex Automation Solutions, Real Madrid C.F., Aerocrine, Ziosk, Tacoma Public Schools, P97 Networks
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Stream Analytics vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.