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Databricks vs Dremio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Organizations benefit from Databricks' cost-effectiveness and efficiency, though some find evaluating immediate gains challenging due to specific contexts.
Sentiment score
5.6
Dremio reduces manpower costs, enhances efficiency, and eliminates infrastructure concerns, improving operations by accessing multiple data sources.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
Head CEO at bizmetric
Dremio surely saves time, reduces costs, and all those things because we don't have to worry so much about the infrastructure to make the different tools communicate.
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Databricks customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, despite occasional delays and communication issues via Microsoft.
Sentiment score
5.2
Dremio's customer service is responsive and helpful, facing staffing challenges as demand grows, requiring more integrators for support.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
We have had to reach out for customer support many times, and they respond, so they are pretty supportive about some long-term issues.
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks provides excellent scalability, supporting diverse data sizes and sectors with high-performance cloud infrastructure and cost-effective management.
Sentiment score
7.1
Dremio scales well, offering flexibility and built-in capabilities, though community users face scaling limits due to licensing.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
Dremio's scalability can handle growing data and user demands easily.
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
Internally, if it's on Docker or Kubernetes, scalability will be built into the system.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is stable and reliable, with high performance and robustness, despite occasional minor issues resolved quickly.
Sentiment score
7.2
Dremio is generally stable, scoring high ratings with occasional performance issues, especially with large datasets, requiring maintenance restarts.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
I rate Dremio a nine in terms of stability.
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks users desire advanced visualization, better integration, enhanced documentation, predictive analytics features, and improved user experience and tools.
Dremio struggles with Delta connector support, performance issues, SQL limitations, high costs, and fewer connectors than competitors.
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG
Starburst comes with around 50 connectors now.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
It should be easier to get Arctic or an open-source version of Arctic onto the software version so that development teams can experiment with it.
Senior Consultant - Data Analytics at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
I see that many times the new versions of Dremio have not fixed old bugs, and in some new versions, old problems that were previously fixed come back again, so I think the upgrade part could use improvement.
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
 

Setup Cost

Databricks' pricing is seen as high for large data volumes but competitive for batch processing on cloud platforms.
Dremio's pricing, though costly for scaling, is seen as valuable compared to competitors, requiring careful evaluation based on needs.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks simplifies large-scale analytics with user-friendly UI, powerful integrations, and scalable features for enhanced performance and collaboration.
Dremio offers efficient data management and visualization with seamless integration, native SQL, and role-based access control features.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech
Having everything under one system and an easier-to-work-with interface, along with having API integrations, adds significant value to working with Dremio.
Senior Consultant - Data Analytics at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Dremio has positively impacted my organization as nowadays we are connected to multiple databases from multiple environments, multiple APIs, and applications, and Dremio organizes everything in an amazing way for me.
Data Analyst at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
You just get the source, connect the data, get visualization, get connected, and do whatever you want.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
9th
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Dremio
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
5th
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 9.6%, down from 18.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dremio is 2.3%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks9.6%
Dremio2.3%
Other88.1%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Corrr Moray - PeerSpot reviewer
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
Has simplified complex data integration workflows and supported consistent reporting across multiple sources
We also have a close relationship with the team that does the Dremio maintenance for the database, like upgrading the versions and they know about some specific problems we had in the past, such as a memory leak. We had a memory leak on some versions, which sometimes stopped the service. Since we are using Dremio installed like a server, not a SaaS solution, many times we need to stop and restart the service to clear all the cache and all that, and this is the thing I should add. I see that many times the new versions of Dremio have not fixed old bugs, and in some new versions, old problems that were previously fixed come back again, so I think the upgrade part could use improvement. I remember using some features in the past, like pivot tables, which proved to be really difficult, but I know this is a fault also for other vendors. Pivoting, transposing, and unpivoting are often not so good. CTEs also many times prove to be not so good, so I think these two main items could be improved significantly if they standardize them.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Dremio?
Dremio allows querying the files I have on my block storage or object storage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dremio?
I don't have information about pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dremio, so I am not entitled to discuss it.
What needs improvement with Dremio?
I wouldn't say there is anything Dremio can be improved on. If I could change something, I would say many developers and programmers, when they are starting to work in this specific field or area, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
Dremio AWS - BYOL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
UBS, TransUnion, Quantium, Daimler, OVH
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Dremio and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.