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Cloudera Data Science Workbench vs Databricks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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

Cloudera Data Science Workb...
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
24th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Cloudera Data Science Workbench is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 7.2%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.2%
Cloudera Data Science Workbench1.6%
Other91.2%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail Peer - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Management Lead Advisor at Unionbank Philippines
Useful for data science modeling but improvement is needed in MLOps and pricing
If you don't configure CDSW well, then it might be not useful for you. Deploying the tool can vary in complexity, but most of the time, it's relatively simple and straightforward. Triggering a job from data to production is easy, as the platform automates the deployment process. However, ensuring optimal resource allocation is essential for smooth operations.
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

"I appreciate CDSW's ability to logically segregate environments, such as data, DR, and production, ensuring they don't interfere with each other. The deployment of machine learning is fast and easy to manage. Its API calls are also fast."
"The Cloudera Data Science Workbench is customizable and easy to use."
"Data is open to everyone; they can access it through many channels, including notebooks or SQL."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."
"Databricks is scalable, it operates three times faster than any of the other ecosystems which we have experimented on."
"Databricks' Lakehouse architecture has been most useful for us, and the data governance has been absolutely efficient in between other kinds of solutions."
"The initial setup of Databricks is straightforward and simple."
"Prior to using Azure Databricks in the cloud, we had Databricks installed in clusters, and since our implementation, the performance has increased and our cost has been reduced."
"The features of Databricks have impacted my organization positively, as it has done so very efficiently since we switched from several platforms to using this one."
 

Cons

"Running this solution requires a minimum of 12GB to 16GB of RAM."
"The tool's MLOps is not good. It's pricing also needs to improve."
"We found this solution a little bit difficult to scale."
"Anyone who doesn't know SQL may find the product difficult to work with."
"The pricing of Databricks could be cheaper."
"Databricks is still having some stability issues."
"Pricing is one of the things that could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in visualization."
"I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier."
"I think the aspects of Databricks that should be improved are that it could be faster and that I would like to be able to run direct queries from the server."
"They release patches that sometimes break our code. These patches are supposed to fix issues, but sometimes they cause disruptions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."
"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."
"Databricks' cost could be improved."
"I do not exactly know the costs, but one of our clients pays between $100 USD and $200 USD monthly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
8%
Wholesaler/Distributor
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise58
 

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...
 

Also Known As

CDSW
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IQVIA, Rush University Medical Center, Western Union
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera Data Science Workbench vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,344 professionals have used our research since 2012.