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Cloudera DataFlow vs Databricks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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 DataFlow
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
17th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Science Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Cloudera DataFlow is 1.3%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 11.8%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks11.8%
Cloudera DataFlow1.3%
Other86.9%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Mohamed-Saied - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data integration and workflow scheduling elevate project performance
Cloudera DataFlow is used as an ETL or ELT solution within Cloudera's data pipeline. Our organization heavily relies on it for data ingestion, transformation, and warehousing. It is also used daily for operational tasks, and it integrates well within Cloudera's ecosystem for high performance and…
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

"This solution is very scalable and robust."
"Cloudera DataFlow is fully compatible with Cloudera's ecosystem and offers high efficiency through native connectors for various ecosystems."
"The initial setup was not so difficult"
"DataFlow's performance is okay."
"The most effective features are data management and analytics."
"The time travel feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The processing capacity is tremendous in the database."
"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."
"There are good features for turning off clusters."
"The main features of the solution are efficiency."
"I like cloud scalability and data access for any type of user."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is its notebook. It's quite convenient to use, both terms of the research and the development and also the final deployment, I can just declare the spark jobs by the load tables. It's quite convenient."
"The fast data loading process and data storage capabilities are great."
 

Cons

"Although their workflow is pretty neat, it still requires a lot of transformation coding; especially when it comes to Python and other demanding programming languages."
"It's an outdated legacy product that doesn't meet the needs of modern data analysts and scientists."
"It is not easy to use the R language. Though I don't know if it's possible, I believe it is possible, but it is not the best language for machine learning."
"Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today."
"I would like to see the integration between Databricks and MLflow improved. It is quite hard to train multiple models in parallel in the distributed fashions. You hit rate limits on the clients very fast."
"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."
"Instead of relying on a massive instance, the solution should offer micro partition levels. They're working on it, however, they need to implement it to help the solution run more effectively."
"Databricks would have more collaborative features than it has. It should have some more customization for the jobs."
"There are no direct connectors — they are very limited."
"There could be more support for automated machine learning in the database. I would like to see more ways to do analysis so that the reporting is more understandable."
"I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier."
"Scalability is an area with certain shortcomings. The solution's scalability needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"DataFlow isn't expensive, but its value for money isn't great."
"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."
"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."
"There are different versions."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"We're charged on what the data throughput is and also what the compute time is."
"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
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 DataFlow?
The most effective features are data management and analytics.
What needs improvement with Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today.
What is your primary use case for Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow is used as an ETL or ELT solution within Cloudera's data pipeline. Our organization heavily relies on it for data ingestion, transformation, and warehousing. It is also used daily...
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

CDF, Hortonworks DataFlow, HDF
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clearsense
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera DataFlow vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.