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Databricks vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse 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
5.7
Most are satisfied with ROI, acknowledging its benefits, though improvements are possible, as it efficiently enhances backend operations.
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.
 

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
6.7
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support is responsive and expert, though users sometimes need online resources for faster solutions.
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.
I would rate my experience with technical support around six on a scale of 1 to 10 because I have not had a particular experience with technical support.
 

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
7.2
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse excels in scalability, integration, and expandability, though improvements are needed for large data sets.
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.
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
As a consultant, we hire additional programmers when we need to scale up certain major projects.
 

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
8.0
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is praised for its stability, reliability, and quick issue resolution, despite time-consuming extensive dataset processing.
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.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks requires visualization improvements, pricing clarity, user-friendliness, expanded integrations, and simplification for non-technical users to enhance usability.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse presents complexity, compatibility challenges, performance issues, high costs, and requires improved in-memory analysis and updates.
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.
It would be better to release patches less frequently, maybe once a month or once every two months.
Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement.
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers view Databricks as moderately pricey, with high setup costs, though discounts and licensing flexibility are available.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's pricing varies by needs; Azure integration can be cost-effective, but technical support costs extra.
It is not a cheap solution.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks excels in scalability, integration, and user-friendly features, making it ideal for data processing and AI across industries.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers performance, integration, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for large data management and business intelligence.
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.
The columnstore index enhances data query performance by using less space and achieving faster performance than general indexing.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is used in the logistics area for optimizing SQL queries related to the loading and unloading of trucks.
There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
 

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.
HassanFatemi - PeerSpot reviewer
Has handled large volumes of data effectively but still needs cost flexibility
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in solutions with parallel data warehousing due to this expense. Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement. Additionally, I have not worked recently with it, so I don't know if this feature already exists, but if it doesn't, having an elastic feature that adjusts the service's power dynamically based on the workload would be beneficial instead of fixing the power at a specific level.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Insurance Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise21
 

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 Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in so...
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.