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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
Organizations experience mixed returns from Databricks, with benefits from cost savings and efficiency, but challenges in initial migration.
Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers significant ROI by efficiently managing large data volumes and integrating with existing tools.
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
7.2
Databricks customer service is generally effective with prompt responses, though some report issues mainly with third-party support channels.
Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support receives mixed reviews, praised for expertise but needing faster responses and improved Azure-related assistance.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for efficient scalability and cloud compatibility, allowing easy resource adjustment across diverse projects and industries.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse scales well but requires SQL expertise; performance varies compared to alternatives like Snowflake.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Databricks is stable and efficient for large data, with minor issues during updates and occasional connectivity challenges.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is praised for stability and reliability, handling large data volumes with minor concerns about processing speed.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks users desire improved UI, enhanced data visualization, better integration, clearer error messages, robust support, and comprehensive documentation.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse needs enhancements in speed, scalability, compatibility, cost efficiency, and error messaging for better performance.
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
This feature, if made publicly available, may act as a game-changer, considering many global organizations use SAP data for their ERP requirements.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive.
The ETL designing process could be optimized for better efficiency.
 

Setup Cost

Databricks pricing depends on usage, with flexibility in licensing, and can vary in competitiveness compared to other solutions.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is cost-effective for large enterprises, but costs vary by data size, performance, and support.
It is not a cheap solution.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks provides a unified platform for data engineering, machine learning, seamless cloud integration, and robust data management capabilities.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers accelerated performance, seamless integration, and scalability, excelling in data management and business intelligence.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
Developers can share their notebooks. Git and Azure DevOps integration on the Databricks side is also very helpful.
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.
The interface is very user-friendly.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (7th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
37
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.
StevenLai - PeerSpot reviewer
Strong scalable solution with streamlined metadata warehousing
We use it to build our data warehouse and databases, and everything in the back end It helps streamline our metadata warehousing process. As it is our only type of data warehouse and database, it serves as our source, destination, and staging area. This product has many features which are useful…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
10%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution.
 

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: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.