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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
23rd
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
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Cloudera Data Science Workbench is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 12.3%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks12.3%
Cloudera Data Science Workbench1.3%
Other86.4%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail Peer - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Cloudera Data Science Workbench is customizable and easy to use."
"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."
"It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark."
"There are good features for turning off clusters."
"It offers AI functionalities that assist with code management and machine learning processes."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the hardware and the resources it quickly provides without much hassle."
"We can scale the product."
"Databricks has improved my organization by allowing us to transform data from sources to a different format and feed that to the analytics, business intelligence, and reporting teams. This tool makes it easy to do those kinds of things."
"Databricks makes it really easy to use a number of technologies to do data analysis. In terms of languages, we can use Scala, Python, and SQL. Databricks enables you to run very large queries, at a massive scale, within really good timeframes."
"I think Databricks is very good at facilitating AI and machine learning projects; they implement AI and machine learning models very well, and clients can run their models on Databricks."
 

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."
"This solution only supports queries in SQL and Python, which is a bit limiting."
"I have had some issues with some of the Spark clusters running on Databricks, where the Spark runtime and clusters go up and down, which is an area for improvement."
"The product should provide more advanced features in future releases."
"Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved."
"I would like more integration with SQL for using data in different workspaces."
"The initial setup is difficult."
"We'd like a more visual dashboard for analysis It needs better UI."
"I would love an integration in my desktop IDE. For now, I have to code on their webpage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."
"My smallest project is around a hundred euros, and my most expensive is just under a thousand euros a week. That is based on terabytes of data processed each month."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"We're charged on what the data throughput is and also what the compute time is."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
35%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cloudera Data Science Workbench?
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...
What needs improvement with Cloudera Data Science Workbench?
The tool's MLOps is not good. It's pricing also needs to improve.
What is your primary use case for Cloudera Data Science Workbench?
We have different use cases. Our banking use case uses machine learning to identify customer life events and recommend the best-suited card products. These machine-learning models are deployed in o...
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: September 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.