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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 June 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Cloudera Data Science Workbench is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 7.6%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.6%
Cloudera Data Science Workbench1.6%
Other90.8%
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."
"I think what I value is more about the technology itself because you don't need to have too much knowledge to be able to use the solution."
"We recommend Databricks, especially with the Azure cloud frameworks."
"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."
"Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable."
"The solution's features are fantastic and include interactive clusters that perform at top speed when compared to other solutions."
"It's easy to increase performance as required."
"There are good features for turning off clusters."
"Databricks' most valuable features are the workspace and notebooks, and its integration, interface, and documentation are also good."
 

Cons

"Running this solution requires a minimum of 12GB to 16GB of RAM."
"We found this solution a little bit difficult to scale."
"The tool's MLOps is not good. It's pricing also needs to improve."
"So far, we're not measuring any return on investment, such as saving time, money, or resources with Databricks."
"The product should provide more advanced features in future releases."
"Databricks' performance when serving the data to an analytics tool isn't as good as Snowflake's."
"I would like to see more documentation in terms of how an end-user could use it, and users like me can easily try it and implement use cases."
"Overall it's a good product, however, it might get challenged over time with individual best-of-breed products."
"Databricks can improve by making the documentation better."
"As a data engineer, I see cluster failure in our Databricks user databases as a major issue."
"Pricing is one of the things that could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"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."
"I'm not involved in the financing, but I can say that the solution seemed reasonably priced compared to the competitors. Similar products are usually in the same price range. With five being affordable and one being expensive, I would rate Databricks a four out of five."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"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."
"We only pay for the Azure compute behind the solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise57
 

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.
902,456 professionals have used our research since 2012.