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Databricks vs Microsoft Fabric 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Ranking in Data Management Platforms (DMP)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (6th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Microsoft Fabric
Ranking in Data Management Platforms (DMP)
13th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
PK
Analyst at Cepstrum(EEE Students Society), IIT Guwahati
Unified data platform has enabled consistent analytics and rapid visualization for all teams
The most valuable and useful feature I have found in Microsoft Fabric is data consistency, which is the top thing. We use the cloud, so it is very fast because we do not use other servers such as Redshift or any other database servers. We just stage the data in Data Lake, which is their central cloud storage, and from there we pull; the retrieval speed and processing speed are very fast, which is an advantage. The integration with Power BI in Microsoft Fabric has influenced my data visualization by making it very simple; you just click on Power BI, select your Data Lake that is available, and from there, you can create your visualization. It would be very rapid compared to other sources or if you use the DirectQuery mode or import mode, which would be slower when compared to the Data Lake mode of pulling the data. I usually evaluate the effectiveness of Microsoft Fabric's data integration capabilities by comparing it to other services. When I do all the things on Microsoft Fabric, I feel it is better in integration because all different analysts or persons working on data simply come to Microsoft Fabric, get that license, and can do whatever they want; whether they want to do BI reporting, analyze, or create models, it would be on the same platform, making it really easy for them to perform their tasks. The integration across all applications is very comfortable for users.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The load distribution capabilities are good, and you can perform data processing tasks very quickly."
"Specifically for data science and data analytics purposes, it can handle large amounts of data in less time. I can compare it with Teradata. If a job takes five hours with Teradata databases, Databricks can complete it in around three to three and a half hours."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"I like the simplicity and ease of use."
"Prior to using Azure Databricks in the cloud, we had Databricks installed in clusters, and since our implementation, the performance has increased and our cost has been reduced."
"Before I used Databricks it took me a long time to do some functions and now with Databricks I can do them much quicker."
"The built-in optimization recommendations halved the speed of queries and allowed us to reach decision points and deliver insights very quickly."
"I think the features I like the most are the scalability of the solution as well as its ability to share."
"The most valuable and useful feature I have found in Microsoft Fabric is data consistency, which is the top thing."
 

Cons

"For a small workload, Databricks may not be worth the costs."
"I believe that this product could be improved by becoming more user-friendly."
"The integration features could be more interesting, more involved."
"Anyone who doesn't know SQL may find the product difficult to work with."
"The pricing is not the cheapest but it's understandable because it's a very high-end solution and easy to use, there's a lot of complexity masked away."
"It would be great if Databricks could integrate all the cloud platforms."
"Databricks has a lack of debuggers, and it would be good to see more components."
"It would be better if it were faster. It can be slow, and it can be super fast for big data. But for small data, sometimes there is a sub-second response, which can be considered slow. In the next release, I would like to have automatic creation of APIs because they don't have it at the moment, and I spend a lot of time building them."
"I think the Copilot usage in Microsoft Fabric can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
"The cost for Databricks depends on the use case. I work on it as a consultant, so I'm using the client's Databricks, so it depends on how big the client is."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."
"We're charged on what the data throughput is and also what the compute time is."
"There are different versions."
"The solution requires a subscription."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with Microsoft Fabric?
I think the Copilot usage in Microsoft Fabric can be improved. Across all Microsoft Fabric platforms such as Power BI or data engineering and Azure Data Factory, they have integrated this Copilot, ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Fabric?
My usual use cases for Microsoft Fabric involve using it as a unified platform where we perform all data engineering tasks, all data analysis tasks, and all data ML models on the same platform beca...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Fabric?
In assessing Microsoft Fabric's security features, I think we never have a chance to manage the security features directly, but that would be taken care of by the Microsoft admins or the platform a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Information Not Available
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