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Cloudera Data Science Workbench vs Databricks comparison

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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 (3rd), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (3rd), Streaming Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 6.7%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks6.7%
Cloudera Data Science Workbench1.6%
Other91.7%
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."
"Databricks covers end-to-end data analytics workflow in one platform, this is the best feature of the solution."
"The setup was straightforward."
"There are good features for turning off clusters."
"The built-in optimization recommendations halved the speed of queries and allowed us to reach decision points and deliver insights very quickly."
"The technical support is good."
"The solution is built from Spark and has integration with MLflow, which is important for our use case."
"It can send out large data amounts."
"I like cloud scalability and data access for any type of user."
 

Cons

"We found this solution a little bit difficult to scale."
"The tool's MLOps is not good. It's pricing also needs to improve."
"Running this solution requires a minimum of 12GB to 16GB of RAM."
"In my view, the fundamental approach of implementing Databricks is still very code heavy, more than you find in Azure Data Factory and other technologies like Informatica or SQL Server Integration Service."
"Databricks is still having some stability issues."
"The solution could be improved by adding a feature that would make it more user-friendly for our team. The feature is simple, but it would be useful. Currently, our team is more familiar with the language R, but Databricks requires the use of Jupyter Notebooks which primarily supports Python. We have tried using RStudio, but it is not a fully integrated solution. To fully utilize Databricks, we have to use the Jupyter interface. One feature that would make it easier for our team to adopt the Jupyter interface would be the ability to select a specific variable or line of code and execute it within a cell. This feature is available in other Jupyter Notebooks outside of Databricks and in our own IDE, but it is not currently available within Databricks. If this feature were added, it would make the transition to using Databricks much smoother for our team."
"Databricks would benefit from enhanced metrics and tighter integration with Azure's diagnostics."
"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."
"One area of improvement is the Databricks File System (DBFS), where command-line challenges arise when accessing files. Standardization of file paths on the system could help, as engineers sometimes struggle."
"The solution is not exactly stable. We've faced a few bugs which have really affected it, especially when it comes to connecting with Spark."
"Costs can quickly add up if you don't plan for it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"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."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
"We implement this solution on behalf of our customers who have their own Azure subscription and they pay for Databricks themselves. The pricing is more expensive if you have large volumes of data."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"Databricks uses a price-per-use model, where you can use as much compute as you need."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
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 Enterprise60
 

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: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.