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Databricks vs Redpanda comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Science Platforms (1st)
Redpanda
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Databricks is 12.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redpanda is 1.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks12.5%
Redpanda1.4%
Other86.1%
Streaming Analytics
 

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.
Vishal M Godi - PeerSpot reviewer
High-performance message brokering with excellent documentation and an easy setup
The industry standard for this kind of platform is Kafka. Confluent Kafka has acquired it. Kafka is an open-source platform built by Apache. Confluent is the commercial version of it. The major improvement of Redpanda over Kafka is firstly, good documentation. Redpanda's documentation is very easily understandable, and they have a lot of examples. In addition to that, most of the setups include using another technology called Docker, which I am very familiar with. Setting up technologies using Docker is very convenient to me, and Redpanda has provided many templates for that. Redpanda has its own built-in metrics exporter, making it easier to monitor and check performance. What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++. C++ is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup phase of Databricks was good."
"It offers AI functionalities that assist with code management and machine learning processes."
"We have the ability to scale, collaborate and do machine learning."
"The solution offers a free community version."
"In the manufacturing industry, Databricks can be beneficial to use because of machine learning. It is useful for tasks, such as product analysis or predictive maintenance."
"Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable."
"Can cut across the entire ecosystem of open source technology to give an extra level of getting the transformatory process of the data."
"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."
"What makes Redpanda superior is its performance since it's written in C++. C++ is pretty much the standard for high-performance applications."
"The UI is modern."
"The cost savings have been significant."
"I tested it with ten-plus nodes, and it's highly scalable."
 

Cons

"Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved."
"Databricks' performance when serving the data to an analytics tool isn't as good as Snowflake's."
"Databricks may not be as easy to use as other tools, but if you simplify a tool too much, it won't have the flexibility to go in-depth. Databricks is completely in the programmer's hands. I prefer flexibility rather than simplicity."
"I would like it if Databricks made it easier to set up a project."
"I believe that this product could be improved by becoming more user-friendly."
"Databricks has a lack of debuggers, and it would be good to see more components."
"Would be helpful to have additional licensing options."
"While Databricks is generally a robust solution, I have noticed a limitation with debugging in the Delta Live Table, which could be improved."
"The command-line tools need to be improved. To quickly check the status of the topics and all."
"The version control mechanism must be improved."
"Recently, for the documentation, they've built their own AI chatbot, which is focused on giving you answers based on their documentation. While using that, I did not find it to be very good."
"When it comes to self-hosting, their documentation could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"The product pricing is moderate."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"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."
"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."
"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."
"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
"It's free. Everybody can use it, only support is paid."
"Redpanda is cheaper than its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Redpanda?
Redpanda is actually a commercial platform, but they do provide free versions as well. I've been working only with the free versions.
What needs improvement with Redpanda?
Recently, for the documentation, they've built their own AI chatbot, which is focused on giving you answers based on their documentation. While using that, I did not find it to be very good. Maybe ...
What is your primary use case for Redpanda?
I have worked with Redpanda for the past two to three months. Mainly in the tech industry or software industry, there's a huge rise of streaming data. Redpanda serves as a very reliable and fast me...
 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Redpanda and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.