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Databricks vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Databricks efficiently lowers costs with cloud services, though ROI varies by sector and integration, particularly with Azure.
Sentiment score
6.4
Users achieve ROI with Azure Synapse through cost savings, flexibility, and efficiency, often preferring it over Teradata.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
Some of my customers have indeed seen a return on investment with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as they used it for analytics to drive decision-making, improving their processes or increasing revenue.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Databricks support is praised for prompt, professional service, comprehensive resources, and effective communication, enhancing overall user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.6
Azure Synapse Analytics support is praised for responsiveness but criticized for expertise and slow response, especially for smaller clients.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
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.
They are slow to respond and not very knowledgeable.
This is an underestimation of the real impact because we use big data also to monitor the network and the customer.
I would rate the support for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as an eight out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for its scalability, enabling easy adaptation to large data and user loads with efficient resource management.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics excels in scalability and flexibility, efficiently supporting diverse data activities despite high costs.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is scalable, offering numerous opportunities for scalability.
For the scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, I would rate it a 10 until you remain in the Azure Cloud scalability framework.
Recovering from such scenarios becomes a bit problematic or time-consuming.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is stable and robust, with minor issues, handling large data volumes and earning high stability ratings.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is stable and reliable, with minor performance concerns and high user satisfaction ratings for workload handling.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
Performance and stability are absolutely fine because Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is a PaaS service.
I find the service stable as I have not encountered many issues.
We have never integrated Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics with Databricks, but we have mostly pulled data from on-premises systems into Azure Databricks.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks requires visualization improvements, pricing clarity, user-friendliness, expanded integrations, and simplification for non-technical users to enhance usability.
Azure Synapse Analytics could improve cost, integration, documentation, interface complexity, monitoring, data governance, connectivity, and scalability.
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
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.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an excellent product because it includes both SIEM and orchestration capabilities with playbooks.
There is a need for better documentation, particularly for customized tasks with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.
Databricks is a very rich solution, with numerous open sources and capabilities in terms of extract, transform, load, database query, and so forth.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers view Databricks as moderately pricey, with high setup costs, though discounts and licensing flexibility are available.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides flexible pricing based on usage, offering cost benefits for companies within Microsoft's ecosystem.
It is not a cheap solution.
The cheapest tier costs about $4,000 to $4,700 a year, while the most expensive tier can reach up to $300,000 a year.
I think the price of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very expensive, but that's not only for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics—it's for the cloud in general.
I find the pricing of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reasonable.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks excels in scalability, integration, and user-friendly features, making it ideal for data processing and AI across industries.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides scalability, integration, security, and real-time insights with efficient data handling and powerful analytics capabilities.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
One of the most valuable features in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the ability to write your own ETL code using Azure Data Factory, which is a component within Synapse.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers significant visibility, which helps us understand our usage more clearly.
For Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, the integration is the most valuable feature, meaning that whatever you need is fast and easy to use.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Databricks is 8.3%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.3%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics6.3%
Databricks8.3%
Other85.4%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AnandTiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Has consistently supported integration across diverse environments and streamlined deployment processes
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve their pricing structure. They currently have two separate pricing tiers: full log and partial log. I suggest they implement a single price and reduce charges on logs. They could implement a cap with some free tier or price tier based on the GBs of log collected. This would help customers use Azure more effectively. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an excellent product because it includes both SIEM and orchestration capabilities with playbooks, but the log management part is very costly. Regarding future improvements, I would appreciate more application connectors for integration, particularly for on-premise based solutions. Many customers still maintain on-premise infrastructure, so having more integration possibilities for these environments would be beneficial.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

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 Business29
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise55
 

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...
How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
I find the pricing of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reasonable; compared to AWS Glue or Databricks, it is reasonable.
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.