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Databricks vs MicroStrategy 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 benefit from Databricks' cost-effectiveness and efficiency, though some find evaluating immediate gains challenging due to specific contexts.
Sentiment score
7.7
MicroStrategy offers cost-effective BI solutions, enhancing reporting, reducing maintenance, and providing significant ROI through tailored data management and visualization.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Databricks customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, despite occasional delays and communication issues via Microsoft.
Sentiment score
5.2
MicroStrategy receives praise for its responsive customer service and knowledge base, though some experience delays with complex issues.
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 the technical support from MicroStrategy as nine out of 10.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks provides excellent scalability, supporting diverse data sizes and sectors with high-performance cloud infrastructure and cost-effective management.
Sentiment score
7.6
MicroStrategy is highly scalable, supporting many users and large data, with some performance challenges but positive overall ratings.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
MicroStrategy's scalability is good, as it has the possibility to read a lot of data and works fine with all the information that we have.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is stable and reliable, with high performance and robustness, despite occasional minor issues resolved quickly.
Sentiment score
7.3
Users find MicroStrategy stable, noting proper setup and newer versions' improvements, despite occasional bugs and configuration-specific performance issues.
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.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
I would rate the stability of MicroStrategy as nine out of 10.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks users desire advanced visualization, better integration, enhanced documentation, predictive analytics features, and improved user experience and tools.
MicroStrategy needs improved visualizations, user interface, and data integration to compete with more user-friendly platforms like Tableau and Power BI.
If I could right-click to copy absolute paths or to read files directly into a data frame, it would standardize and simplify the process.
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.
Organizations that are well-established and have more money can afford MicroStrategy, but startups and mid-level organizations who do not have this much budget have to opt for other cheaper tools.
I would appreciate improvements in MicroStrategy related to integration or sharing features with Power BI.
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface.
 

Setup Cost

Databricks' pricing is seen as high for large data volumes but competitive for batch processing on cloud platforms.
MicroStrategy's pricing is high; negotiate for discounts, align licenses with needs, and consider potential long-term cost benefits.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks simplifies large-scale analytics with user-friendly UI, powerful integrations, and scalable features for enhanced performance and collaboration.
MicroStrategy provides scalable analytics with customizable reports, self-service, real-time data, and mobile access for enhanced decision-making and visualization.
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.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
It's important because with MicroStrategy we can manage all our cubes and show data to our clients.
The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis in my experience are the security, the metadata management, and the administration, along with the options of different workarounds available to accommodate different types of requirements.
 

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)
MicroStrategy
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (12th), Embedded BI (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 8.3%, up 5.9% compared to last year.
MicroStrategy, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 2.0% mindshare, down 3.5% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks8.3%
Snowflake17.7%
Dremio8.9%
Other65.1%
Cloud Data Warehouse
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MicroStrategy2.0%
Microsoft Power BI14.1%
Tableau Enterprise10.3%
Other73.6%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
AJIN S L - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 Business37
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise100
 

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 MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
Areas of MicroStrategy that have room for improvement include pricing because it is costly. Organizations that are well-established and have more money can afford MicroStrategy, but startups and mi...
 

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
Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
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872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.