We compared Databricks and Google Cloud Dataflow based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Databricks excels in collaborative features, customer service, and pricing, with a focus on data insights. Google Cloud Dataflow stands out for scalability, real-time processing, ease of use, and ROI, with a focus on data transformation. Areas for improvement in Databricks include data visualization and pricing flexibility, while Google Cloud Dataflow could enhance integration, documentation, and error handling.
Features: Databricks stands out with its seamless integration with various platforms, collaborative capabilities, and advanced analytics. On the other hand, Google Cloud Dataflow offers scalability, easy setup, real-time processing, data transformation, and seamless integration with other Google Cloud services.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Databricks product is reported to be straightforward and hassle-free, while Google Cloud Dataflow offers a relatively low setup cost. This makes it easy and affordable for users to get started with the service., Databricks users report increased efficiency, productivity, and data analysis capabilities. Google Cloud Dataflow users mention improved scalability, reduced costs, and flexibility provided by the platform.
Room for Improvement: Databricks has room for improvement in data visualization, monitoring, external integration, documentation, and flexible pricing. Google Cloud Dataflow needs better integration, documentation, error handling, pipeline customization, and improved performance for large-scale data processing.
Deployment and customer support: The user feedback indicates that the duration required for establishing a new tech solution varies for both Databricks and Google Cloud Dataflow. Some users mention spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup for both products, while others report a week for both stages., Customers have praised the customer service and support offered by both Databricks and Google Cloud Dataflow. However, Databricks is highlighted for its efficient and effective support team, while Google Cloud Dataflow is commended for its availability of extensive resources for self-guidance.
The summary above is based on 56 interviews we conducted recently with Databricks and Google Cloud Dataflow users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The integration with Python and the notebooks really helps."
"Ability to work collaboratively without having to worry about the infrastructure."
"We can scale the product."
"Automation with Databricks is very easy when using the API."
"The processing capacity is tremendous in the database."
"The most valuable feature of Databricks is the integration of the data warehouse and data lake, and the development of the lake house. Additionally, it integrates well with Spark for processing data in production."
"Databricks is a scalable solution. It is the largest advantage of the solution."
"Databricks has a scalable Spark cluster creation process. The creators of Databricks are also the creators of Spark, and they are the industry leaders in terms of performance."
"The service is relatively cheap compared to other batch-processing engines."
"I don't need a server running all the time while using the tool. It is also easy to setup. The product offers a pay-as-you-go service."
"The support team is good and it's easy to use."
"The most valuable features of Google Cloud Dataflow are the integration, it's very simple if you have the complete stack, which we are using. It is overall very easy to use, user-friendly friendly, and cost-effective if you know how to use it. The solution is very flexible for programmers, if you know how to do scripts or program in Python or any other language, it's extremely easy to use."
"The solution allows us to program in any language we desire."
"The best feature of Google Cloud Dataflow is its practical connectedness."
"The product's installation process is easy...The tool's maintenance part is somewhat easy."
"The most valuable features of Google Cloud Dataflow are scalability and connectivity."
"I believe that this product could be improved by becoming more user-friendly."
"The integration and query capabilities can be improved."
"The solution could be improved by integrating it with data packets. Right now, the load tables provide a function, like team collaboration. Still, it's unclear as to if there's a function to create different branches and/or more branches. Our team had used data packets before, however, I feel it's difficult to integrate the current with the previous data packets."
"Databricks' performance when serving the data to an analytics tool isn't as good as Snowflake's."
"A lot of people are required to manage this solution."
"There is room for improvement in visualization."
"The interface of Databricks could be easier to use when compared to other solutions. It is not easy for non-data scientists. The user interface is important before we had to write code manually and as solutions move to "No code AI" it is critical that the interface is very good."
"The solution could be improved by adding a feature that would make it more user-friendly for our team. The feature is simple, but it would be useful. Currently, our team is more familiar with the language R, but Databricks requires the use of Jupyter Notebooks which primarily supports Python. We have tried using RStudio, but it is not a fully integrated solution. To fully utilize Databricks, we have to use the Jupyter interface. One feature that would make it easier for our team to adopt the Jupyter interface would be the ability to select a specific variable or line of code and execute it within a cell. This feature is available in other Jupyter Notebooks outside of Databricks and in our own IDE, but it is not currently available within Databricks. If this feature were added, it would make the transition to using Databricks much smoother for our team."
"Google Cloud Dataflow should include a little cost optimization."
"They should do a market survey and then make improvements."
"There are certain challenges regarding the Google Cloud Composer which can be improved."
"Google Cloud Data Flow can improve by having full simple integration with Kafka topics. It's not that complicated, but it could improve a bit. The UI is easy to use but the experience could be better. There are other tools available that do a better job."
"The solution's setup process could be more accessible."
"When I deploy the product in local errors, a lot of errors pop up which are not always caught. The solution's error logging is bad. It can take a lot of time to debug the errors. It needs to have better logs."
"The deployment time could also be reduced."
"The technical support has slight room for improvement."
Databricks is ranked 2nd in Streaming Analytics with 78 reviews while Google Cloud Dataflow is ranked 7th in Streaming Analytics with 10 reviews. Databricks is rated 8.2, while Google Cloud Dataflow is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Databricks writes "A nice interface with good features for turning off clusters to save on computing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Google Cloud Dataflow writes "Easy to use for programmers, user-friendly, and scalable". Databricks is most compared with Amazon SageMaker, Informatica PowerCenter, Dataiku, Dremio and Microsoft Power BI, whereas Google Cloud Dataflow is most compared with Apache NiFi, Amazon MSK, Amazon Kinesis, Spring Cloud Data Flow and Apache Flink. See our Databricks vs. Google Cloud Dataflow report.
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