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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
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (6th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Cloudera Data Science Workbench is 1.8%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 9.3%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks9.3%
Cloudera Data Science Workbench1.8%
Other88.9%
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

"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."
"The Delta Lake data type has been the most useful part of this solution. Delta Lake is an opensource data type and it was implemented and invented by Databricks."
"It's great technology."
"Databricks allows me to automate the creation of a cluster, optimized for machine learning and construct AI machine learning models for the client."
"Databricks has helped us have a good presence in data."
"It helps integrate data science and machine learning capabilities."
"Databricks' most valuable feature is the data transformation through PySpark."
"Databricks is a truly essential platform for data engineering needs, and I recommend it to anyone looking to advance in the data engineering field."
"The technical support is good."
 

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."
"The integration of data could be a bit better."
"As a data engineer, I see cluster failure in our Databricks user databases as a major issue."
"The Databricks cluster can be improved."
"When I used the support, I had communication problems because of the language barrier with the agent. The accent was difficult to understand."
"Databricks doesn't offer the use of Python scripts by itself and is not connected to GitHub repositories or anything similar. This is something that is missing. if they could integrate with Git tools it would be an advantage."
"Support for Microsoft technology and the compatibility with the .NET framework is somewhat missing."
"Scalability is an area with certain shortcomings. The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"Generative AI is catching up in areas like data governance and enterprise flavor. Hence, these are places where Databricks has to be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
"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."
"Whenever we want to find the actual costing, we have to send an email to Databricks, so having the information available on the internet would be helpful."
"We pay as we go, so there isn't a fixed price. It's charged by the unit. I don't have any details detail about how they measure this, but it should be a mix between processing and quantity of data handled. We run a simulation based on our use cases, which gives us an estimate. We've been monitoring this, and the costs have met our expectations."
"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."
"Databricks uses a price-per-use model, where you can use as much compute as you need."
"The product pricing is moderate."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

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: February 2026.
883,619 professionals have used our research since 2012.