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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."
"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."
"Specifically for data science and data analytics purposes, it can handle large amounts of data in less time. I can compare it with Teradata. If a job takes five hours with Teradata databases, Databricks can complete it in around three to three and a half hours."
"Databricks is hosted on the cloud. It is very easy to collaborate with other team members who are working on it. It is production-ready code, and scheduling the jobs is easy."
"The built-in optimization recommendations halved the speed of queries and allowed us to reach decision points and deliver insights very quickly."
"Of the available feature set, I like the Imageflow feature a lot."
"The ease of use and its accessibility are valuable."
"We like that this solution can handle a wide variety and velocity of data engineering, either in batch mode or real-time."
"I like cloud scalability and data access for any type of user."
"Having one solution for everything, from data engineering to machine learning, is beneficial since everything comes under one hood."
 

Cons

"We found this solution a little bit difficult to scale."
"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."
"Anyone who doesn't know SQL may find the product difficult to work with."
"The user experience can be improved. It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."
"Databricks requires writing code in Python or SQL, so if you're a good programmer then you can use Databricks."
"Databricks is a very expensive solution. Pricing is an area that could definitely be improved."
"For a small workload, Databricks may not be worth the costs."
"Sometimes we experience issues connecting our database to Databricks. There are no direct connectors — they are very limited."
"However, my team tells me there are limitations with streaming events. The connectors work with a small set of platforms."
"Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"The basic version of this solution is now open-source, so there are no license costs involved. However, there is a charge for any advanced functionality and this can be quite 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."
"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."
"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"Databricks' cost could be improved."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
17%
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: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.