Databricks
What it is: Unified analytics platform built on Apache Spark. Collaborative notebooks, data engineering, ML at scale.
What It Does Best
Big data analytics. Handle petabytes with Spark. Fast distributed computing for massive datasets.
Collaboration. Notebooks with real-time co-editing. Data engineers and scientists work together seamlessly.
Complete ML platform. MLflow for tracking, AutoML, model serving. Production ML infrastructure included.
Key Features
Spark notebooks: Collaborative Python, R, SQL, Scala notebooks
Delta Lake: Reliable data lake with ACID transactions
MLflow: Experiment tracking, model registry, deployment
AutoML: Automated model training and tuning
Serverless compute: Auto-scaling clusters, pay per use
Pricing
Pay-as-you-go: Based on compute (DBUs)
Typical cost: $300-1,000+/month for small teams
Community Edition: Free tier (limited)
When to Use It
✅ Big data (multi-TB datasets)
✅ Need Spark for distributed computing
✅ ML at production scale
✅ Team collaboration on data projects
✅ Building data lakes and pipelines
When NOT to Use It
❌ Small datasets (overkill, expensive)
❌ Simple analysis (simpler tools better)
❌ Budget-constrained startups
❌ Don't need distributed computing
❌ Learning data science (too complex)
Common Use Cases
ETL at scale: Process terabytes of data daily
Real-time analytics: Streaming data processing
ML pipelines: Train models on big data
Data lakes: Centralized data storage and processing
Team collaboration: Shared notebooks and experiments
Databricks vs Alternatives
vs AWS EMR: Databricks easier, EMR more control/cheaper
vs Snowflake: Snowflake better for SQL, Databricks for ML/engineering
vs Google Colab: Databricks production-scale, Colab for learning
Unique Strengths
Unified platform: Data engineering + data science + ML ops
Spark expertise: Built by Spark creators, optimized performance
Collaboration: Best team notebooks for big data
Delta Lake: Reliable data lakes with ACID guarantees
Bottom line: Best platform for big data analytics and ML. If you need Spark, Databricks is worth the premium. Overkill for small data.