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Databricks vs IBM SPSS Modeler 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

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)
IBM SPSS Modeler
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 7.2%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 3.1%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.2%
IBM SPSS Modeler3.1%
Other89.7%
Data Science Platforms
 

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.
RB
Business Owner at SASS GmbH
Support and flexibility enable effective project initiation and meet customer needs but deployment requires enhancement
The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a solution, and then I convert my MATLAB solution to C programming language. This I can deploy, and I can check it, and it is MISRA compatible. It is very easy to deploy it, to go from MATLAB to C or C++, which is actually needed in the car industry. In the car industry, they want to have it in the hardware. You cannot put MATLAB or IBM SPSS Modeler in the hardware of a car, but with C, there is no problem with a microcontroller. They can shoot it into the microcontroller, and I can check it with Polyspace, and it is MISRA compatible, which is an industrial standard. There is nothing similar in IBM SPSS Modeler. I made solutions with IBM SPSS Modeler, and then the customer said they wanted to make a production out of it, and it was not possible. I stopped with IBM SPSS Modeler 18. It is now 18.6 from what I know at the moment. I do not believe that there is a possibility to design a graphic user interface with it. It is itself a graphic user interface, where you put all sorts of little icons into the display.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to use."
"Automation with Databricks is very easy when using the API."
"One of the newest features brought into this solution provides you with a way to solve, deploy, and train models using the platform itself, or it can connect to your Azure Machine Learning in order to train, deploy, and productionalize some of the machine learning models."
"If you have a lot of data, Databricks is a good choice."
"Databricks is a scalable solution. It is the largest advantage of the solution."
"Databricks is a robust solution for big data processing, offering flexibility and powerful features."
"Data is open to everyone; they can access it through many channels, including notebooks or SQL."
"The initial setup of Databricks is straightforward and simple."
"To date, working with IBM SPSS Modeler has been very good, our installers and trainers have been excellent."
"It's a very organized product. It's easy to use."
"It handles large data better than the previous system that we were using, which was basically Excel and Access. We serve upwards of 300,000 parts over a 150 regions and we need to crunch a lot of numbers."
"The most valuable features of the IBM SPSS Modeler are visual programming, you don't have to write any code, and it is easy to use."
"We are primarily interested in the supply chain data analytics, focusing mainly on procurement, because we believe that there is a lot of value in spend analytics in understanding and identifying opportunities, reducing prices, improving negotiations, and better understanding the categories."
"The visual modeling capability is one of its attractive features."
"Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding."
"SPSS Modeler is a friendly interface for a beginner user."
 

Cons

"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."
"There would also be benefits if more options were available for workers, or the clusters of the two points."
"They release patches that sometimes break our code. These patches are supposed to fix issues, but sometimes they cause disruptions."
"My experience with the pricing and licensing model is that it remains relatively expensive. Though it's less expensive than AWS, we still need a more cost-effective solution."
"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."
"The tool should improve its integration with other products."
"In the next release, I would like to see more optimization features."
"The product cannot be integrated with a popular coding IDE."
"Unstructured data is not appropriate for SPSS Modeler."
"Requires more development."
"The time series should be improved."
"The platform's cloud version needs improvements."
"I would like see more programming languages added, like MATLAB. That would be better."
"​Initial setup of the software was complex, because of our own problems within the government."
"It's very stable, although it is not as user friendly as it could be."
"Neural networks are quite simple, and now neural networks are evolving to these architecture related to deep learning, etc. They didn't incorporate this in IBM SPSS Modeler."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
"The solution is affordable."
"I do not exactly know the costs, but one of our clients pays between $100 USD and $200 USD monthly."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The scalability was kind of limited by our ability to get other people licenses, and that was usually more of a financial constraint. It's expensive, but it's a good tool."
"The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten users use the server with ten licenses, it runs faster. But if forty users use the same appliance, everything slows down. People then think it's not easy to do things and prefer using remote tools like Python to extract data from the database. It's not about being expensive or cheap, but about people's knowledge and experience in how to do the work."
"When you are close to end of quarter, IBM and its partners can get you 60% to 70% discounts, so literally wait for the last day of the quarter for the best prices. You may feel like you are getting robbed if you can't receive a good discount."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"Having in mind all four tools from Garner’s top quadrant, the pricing of this tool is competitive and it reflects the quality that it offers."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise32
 

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 SPSS Modeler?
The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten us...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?
The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a ...
What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Modeler?
I have been using IBM SPSS Modeler for a long time. I am using IBM SPSS Modeler mainly for ETL. Sometimes I use it to compare the results of the modeling as compared to MATLAB. MATLAB is the main t...
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
SPSS Modeler
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Reisebªro Idealtours GmbH, MedeAnalytics, Afni, Israel Electric Corporation, Nedbank Ltd., DigitalGlobe, Vodafone Hungary, Aegon Hungary, Bureau Veritas, Brammer Group, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, InSites Consulting, Fortis Turkey
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. IBM SPSS Modeler and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.