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Azure Synapse Analytics VS Databricks Unified Analytics Platform

Compare Azure Synapse Analytics VS Databricks Unified Analytics Platform and see what are their differences

Azure Synapse Analytics logo Azure Synapse Analytics

Get started with Azure SQL Data Warehouse for an enterprise-class SQL Server experience. Cloud data warehouses offer flexibility, scalability, and big data insights.

Databricks Unified Analytics Platform logo Databricks Unified Analytics Platform

One platform for accelerating data-driven innovation across data engineering, data science & business analytics
  • Azure Synapse Analytics Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-23
  • Databricks Unified Analytics Platform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-11

Azure Synapse Analytics features and specs

  • Integration
    Azure Synapse Analytics integrates with other Azure services like Azure Data Lake Storage, Power BI, and Azure Machine Learning, enabling seamless data movement and business intelligence processes.
  • Scalability
    It allows on-demand scalability, both horizontally and vertically, providing the flexibility to handle workloads of any size efficiently.
  • Unified Experience
    Offers a unified interface for data ingestion, preparation, management, and serving, simplifying data operations and reducing the need for multiple tools.
  • Advanced Security
    Includes robust security features like encryption, network protection, and advanced threat protection to ensure data security and compliance.
  • Serverless and Dedicated Options
    Provides both serverless and dedicated resource models, allowing businesses to optimize their costs by selecting the appropriate compute resources for their needs.

Possible disadvantages of Azure Synapse Analytics

  • Complexity
    The comprehensive range of features and tools can lead to a steep learning curve and complexity in setup and management for new users.
  • Cost Management
    Although flexibility is offered, managing and predicting costs can be challenging, especially in serverless scenarios where usage might fluctuate.
  • Resource Limitations
    Despite its scalability, there might be certain limitations in terms of data size or query complexity compared to some on-premises solutions.
  • Dependency on Internet Connectivity
    As a cloud-based solution, it requires stable and reliable internet connectivity, which may not be available in all regions or circumstances.
  • Integration Learning Curve
    While integration is a strength, mastering the integration with various Azure services and third-party tools can require substantial time and effort.

Databricks Unified Analytics Platform features and specs

  • Scalability
    Databricks is built on Apache Spark, which allows for easy scaling of data processing and analytics operations across large datasets.
  • Integrated Environment
    Provides a unified analytics platform that combines data engineering, data science, and data warehouse capabilities, simplifying workflows.
  • Collaborative Workspace
    Enables collaboration between data engineers, data scientists, and analysts with its interactive notebooks and real-time collaboration features.
  • Lakehouse Architecture
    Combines the best features of data lakes and data warehouses, providing structured transactional data access over unstructured data.
  • Support for Multiple Languages
    Offers support for multiple programming languages such as Python, R, SQL, and Scala, making it versatile for different users.

Possible disadvantages of Databricks Unified Analytics Platform

  • Complexity
    Despite its powerful features, the platform can be complex to set up and manage, particularly for teams unfamiliar with similar environments.
  • Cost
    The platform can become expensive, especially when scaling operations and running large workloads continuously.
  • Learning Curve
    New users might face a steep learning curve, requiring training and practice to use the platform effectively.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Using proprietary tools and integrations could lead to dependency on Databricks, making it harder to switch to other solutions in the future.
  • Limited Offline Features
    As a cloud-native platform, Databricks relies heavily on internet connectivity, lacking robust offline features for some use cases.

Azure Synapse Analytics videos

Azure Synapse Analytics - Next-gen Azure SQL Data Warehouse

More videos:

  • Review - Is Azure SQL Data Warehouse the Right SQL Platform for You?

Databricks Unified Analytics Platform videos

No Databricks Unified Analytics Platform videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Azure Synapse Analytics and Databricks Unified Analytics Platform)
Office & Productivity
46 46%
54% 54
Development
47 47%
53% 53
Data Dashboard
47 47%
53% 53
Business & Commerce
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Azure Synapse Analytics and Databricks Unified Analytics Platform

Azure Synapse Analytics Reviews

Data Warehouse Tools
Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly Azure Data Warehouse) is a cloud-native data warehouse integrated with other Azure services. It unifies data warehousing and big data analytics for comprehensive insights, offering visually interactive tools for user-friendly data exploration.
Source: peliqan.io
Top 6 Cloud Data Warehouses in 2023
Azure Synapse analytics is scalable for large data tables based on its distributed computing. It relies on the MPP (mentioned in the beginning, revisit if you did not grasp it) to quickly run high volumes of complex queries across multiple nodes. With Synapse, there’s an extra emphasis on security and privacy.
Source: geekflare.com
Top 5 BigQuery Alternatives: A Challenge of Complexity
Azure SQL Data Warehouse, now subsumed by Azure Synapse Analytics, brings together the worlds of big data analytics and enterprise data warehousing. Over the years, Azure has made a name for enabling the seamless transfer of data between on-premise and cloud ecosystems.
Source: blog.panoply.io

Databricks Unified Analytics Platform Reviews

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Azure Synapse Analytics should be more popular than Databricks Unified Analytics Platform. It has been mentiond 4 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Azure Synapse Analytics mentions (4)

  • DbVisualizer 24.2: A Complete Review
    Azure Synapse Analytics: DbVisualizer now has extended support for dedicated and serverless SQL pools in Azure Synapse Analytics. That includes support for database-scoped credentials, external file formats and data sources, and external tables. For more information, see the Azure Synapse Dedicated and Azure Synapse Serverless pages on the official site. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Deploying a Data Warehouse with Pulumi and Amazon Redshift
    A data warehouse is a specialized database that's purpose built for gathering and analyzing data. Unlike general-purpose databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL, which are designed to meet the real-time performance and transactional needs of applications, a data warehouse is designed to collect and process the data produced by those applications, collectively and over time, to help you gain insight from it. Examples of... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • [WSJ] Facebook Parent Meta Expected to Post Slowest Revenue Growth Since IPO
    You don't run into these kinds of problems with other tools, like the ones I mentioned. I've never tried the Azure ones, but my gut says they may have some scaling issues (synapse analytics looks promising but I have no experience with it). Source: about 3 years ago
  • The Difference Between Data Warehouses, Data Lakes, and Data Lakehouses.
    Popular managed cloud data warehouse solutions include Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure SQL Database, and Amazon Redshift. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago

Databricks Unified Analytics Platform mentions (1)

  • Should I replicate all our transactional DB to Redshift?
    See more here: https://databricks.com/product/data-lakehouse. Source: about 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Azure Synapse Analytics and Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, you can also consider the following products

Google BigQuery - A fully managed data warehouse for large-scale data analytics.

Amazon SageMaker - Amazon SageMaker provides every developer and data scientist with the ability to build, train, and deploy machine learning models quickly.

Saturn Cloud - ML in the cloud. Loved by Data Scientists, Control for IT. Advance your business's ML capabilities through the entire experiment tracking lifecycle. Available on multiple clouds: AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI.

Palantir Foundry - Palantir Foundry is a platform that reimagines how people use data by removing the barriers between back-end data management and front-end data analysis.

Apache Zeppelin - A web-based notebook that enables interactive data analytics.

Lentiq - Lentiq is a data lake management platform for enterprises and developers.