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Databricks vs IBM Db2 Warehouse comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (3rd), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (3rd), Streaming Analytics (1st)
IBM Db2 Warehouse
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (16th)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sherpard  Muzuva - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Manager at SYSTEMS INTEGRATED LTD (SYMPHONY)
Advanced features enhance business intelligence, but complex management calls for improved user guidance
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more user-friendly and easier to master. They should implement a more comprehensive graphical user interface with additional features. For instance, when users encounter problems, the system should provide better guidelines and troubleshooting directions, except for hardware-related issues. They need to implement tools that would help users perform basic troubleshooting rather than solely relying on support. Other databases have features where users can investigate specific issues using error codes. From my experience, many minor issues could be resolved before escalating to support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Ability to work collaboratively without having to worry about the infrastructure."
"Databricks is a one-stop shop for everything data related, and it can scale with you."
"Automation with Databricks is very easy when using the API."
"I like cloud scalability and data access for any type of user."
"Databricks' Lakehouse architecture has been most useful for us, and the data governance has been absolutely efficient in between other kinds of solutions."
"Our company makes comprehensive use of the solution to consolidate data and do a certain amount of reporting and analytics."
"The initial setup of Databricks is straightforward and simple."
"Databricks is scalable, it operates three times faster than any of the other ecosystems which we have experimented on."
"It can scale effectively as long as resources are available."
"The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"I think it scales really well and as long as you take enough time to learn a little bit about it, it works really well."
"The analytics engine is not bad at forecasting predictions."
"The solution works with big data, so it's pretty scalable."
"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."
"If you have good people designing how the data is stored, it's a marvelous tool."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see more optimization features."
"It would be very helpful if Databricks could integrate with platforms in addition to Azure."
"Can be improved by including drag-and-drop features."
"There should be better integration with other platforms."
"Overall it's a good product, however, it might get challenged over time with individual best-of-breed products."
"I think the aspects of Databricks that should be improved are that it could be faster and that I would like to be able to run direct queries from the server."
"The first deployment is difficult. It is not straightforward and you have to think about a lot of stuff."
"The product could be improved by offering an expansion of their visualization capabilities, which currently assists in development in their notebook environment."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"The biggest challenge anyone could have with Db2 Warehouse is their references or online resources and documentation. They are very, very, very limited on the web."
"There should be more material available for training and training should be free."
"It takes a long time to have a new version or release, similar to Oracle."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse needs to improve its interface."
"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a five. It is fairly bad."
"The areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"The price is okay. It's competitive."
"Databricks' cost could be improved."
"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."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."
"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise60
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The pricing for medium and large environments is almost the same as Oracle. I rate the pricing as six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more u...
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The main advantages of IBM Db2 Warehouse become apparent when dealing with business intelligence applications. I worked with it when it was installed for one of our customers, a utilities company, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Google, Databricks and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.