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Amazon SageMaker vs IBM Watson Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 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

Amazon SageMaker
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
3rd
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Watson Studio
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
12th
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Amazon SageMaker is 7.3%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson Studio is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Hemant Paralkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves team collaboration with advanced feature sharing but needs a better user experience
Improvement is needed in the no-code and low-code capabilities of Amazon SageMaker. This would empower citizen data scientists to utilize the tool more effectively since many data scientists do not have a core development background. Additionally, dealing with frequent UI updates can be challenging, especially for infrastructure architects like myself. It involves effort to migrate to new UIs, making the updates not seamless. User auditing requires enhancements as tracking operations performed by users can be difficult due to dynamic IP validation and role propagation.
Abilio Duarte - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly robust and well-documented platform that simplifies the complex world of AI
The main challenge lies in visibility and ease of use. Providing training sessions can be immensely helpful in helping users navigate and understand the tool's potential. This approach would empower users to explore and make the most of the tools and technologies at their disposal. Another area where IBM could enhance its offering is by providing more visibility to end users regarding the vast potential that Watson offers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support from AWS is excellent."
"The most valuable features are the ability to store artifacts and gather reports and measures from experiments."
"The deployment is very good, where you only need to press a few buttons."
"I appreciate the ease of use in Amazon SageMaker."
"The evolution from SageMaker Classic to SageMaker Studio, particularly the UI part of Studio, is commendable."
"They offer insights into everyone making calls in my organization."
"The few projects we have done have been promising."
"The feature I found most valuable is the data catalog, as it assists with the lineage of data through the preparation pipeline."
"The scalability of IBM Watson Studio is great."
"Technical support is great. We have had weekly teleconferences with the technical people at IBM, and they have been fantastic."
"Stability-wise, it is a great tool."
"It is a stable, reliable product."
"The system's ability to take a look at data, segment it and then use that data very differently."
"It is a very stable and reliable solution."
"It has greatly improved the performance because it is standardized across the company."
"IBM Watson Studio consistently automates across channels."
 

Cons

"While integration is available, there are concerns about how secure this integration is, particularly when exposing data to SageMaker."
"I would recommend having more walkthrough videos and articles beyond AWS Skill Builder."
"The solution needs to be cheaper since it now charges per document for extraction."
"For any cloud provider, the cost has to be substantially reduced, especially in the case of Amazon SageMaker, which is extremely expensive for huge workloads."
"One area where Amazon SageMaker could improve is its pricing. The high costs can drive companies to explore other cloud options. Additionally, while generally good, the updates sometimes come with bugs, and the documentation could be much better. More examples and clearer guidance would be helpful."
"The main challenge with Amazon SageMaker is the integrations."
"Having all documentation easily accessible on the front page of SageMaker would be a great improvement."
"Improvements are needed in terms of complexity, data security, and access policy integration in Amazon SageMaker."
"I think maybe the support is an area where it lacks."
"Initially, it was quite complex. For us, it was not only a matter of getting it installed, that was just a start. It was also trying to come up with a standard way of implementing it across the entire organization, which had been a challenge."
"The decision making in their decision making feature is less good than other options."
"I want IBM's technical support team to provide more specific answers to queries."
"The initial setup was complex."
"So a better user interface could be very helpful"
"The solution's interface is very slow at times."
"The main challenge lies in visibility and ease of use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SageMaker is worth the money for our use case."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"I rate the pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price, and ten is the highest price. The solution is priced reasonably. There is no additional cost to be paid in excess of the standard licensing fees."
"The solution is relatively cheaper."
"On average, customers pay about $300,000 USD per month."
"In terms of pricing, I'd also rate it ten out of ten because it's been beneficial compared to other solutions."
"Watson Studio's pricing is reasonable for what you get."
"IBM Watson Studio is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is generally reasonable and straightforward but can vary significantly depending on the specific workloads in use."
"IBM Watson Studio is a reasonably priced product"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Educational Organization
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Amazon SageMaker?
We've had experience with unique ML projects using SageMaker. For example, we're developing a platform similar to ChatGPT that requires models. We utilize Amazon SageMaker to create endpoints for t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon SageMaker?
Before deploying SageMaker, I reviewed the pricing, especially for notebook instances. The cost for small to medium instances is not very high.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Watson Studio?
The pricing of Watson Studio is justified by the benefits and power it offers.
What needs improvement with IBM Watson Studio?
One area that could be improved is the backup and restoration of the database and the overall database configuration. There were also challenges with programming the network extension in the last p...
 

Also Known As

AWS SageMaker, SageMaker
Watson Studio, IBM Data Science Experience, Data Science Experience, DSx
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DigitalGlobe, Thomson Reuters Center for AI and Cognitive Computing, Hotels.com, GE Healthcare, Tinder, Intuit
GroupM, Accenture, Fifth Third Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SageMaker vs. IBM Watson Studio and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.