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Cloudera DataFlow vs Databricks comparison

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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

Cloudera DataFlow
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
19th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Databricks
Ranking in Streaming Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (3rd), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Cloudera DataFlow is 3.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 7.4%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.4%
Cloudera DataFlow3.2%
Other89.4%
Streaming Analytics
 

Featured Reviews

Mohamed-Saied - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Architect at Teradata Corporation
Efficient data integration and workflow scheduling elevate project performance
Cloudera DataFlow is used as an ETL or ELT solution within Cloudera's data pipeline. Our organization heavily relies on it for data ingestion, transformation, and warehousing. It is also used daily for operational tasks, and it integrates well within Cloudera's ecosystem for high performance and…
SimonRobinson - PeerSpot reviewer
Governance And Engagement Lead
Improved data governance has enabled sensitive data tracking but cost management still needs work
I believe we could improve Databricks integration with cloud service providers. The impact of our current integration has not been particularly good, and it's becoming very expensive for us. The inefficiencies in our implementation, such as not shutting down warehouses when they're not in use or reserving the right number of credits, have led to increased costs. We made several beginner mistakes, such as not taking advantage of incremental loading and running overly complicated queries all the time. We should be using ETL tools to help us instead of doing it directly in Databricks. We need more experienced professionals to manage Databricks effectively, as it's not as forgiving as other platforms such as Snowflake. I think introducing customer repositories would facilitate easier implementation with Databricks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most effective features are data management and analytics."
"The initial setup was not so difficult"
"DataFlow's performance is okay."
"Cloudera DataFlow is fully compatible with Cloudera's ecosystem and offers high efficiency through native connectors for various ecosystems."
"This solution is very scalable and robust."
"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."
"Databricks makes it really easy to use a number of technologies to do data analysis. In terms of languages, we can use Scala, Python, and SQL. Databricks enables you to run very large queries, at a massive scale, within really good timeframes."
"It is fast, it's scalable, and it does the job it needs to do."
"Databricks is a unified solution that we can use for streaming. It is supporting open source languages, which are cloud-agnostic. When I do database coding if any other tool has a similar language pack to Excel or SQL, I can use the same knowledge, limiting the need to learn new things. It supports a lot of Python libraries where I can use some very easily."
"We can scale the product."
"Imageflow is a visual tool that helps make it easier for business people to understand complex workflows."
"Databricks is based on a Spark cluster and it is fast. Performance-wise, it is great."
"The most valuable feature is the versatility of the ecosystem."
 

Cons

"Although their workflow is pretty neat, it still requires a lot of transformation coding; especially when it comes to Python and other demanding programming languages."
"It is not easy to use the R language. Though I don't know if it's possible, I believe it is possible, but it is not the best language for machine learning."
"It's an outdated legacy product that doesn't meet the needs of modern data analysts and scientists."
"Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today."
"I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier."
"The first deployment is difficult. It is not straightforward and you have to think about a lot of stuff."
"Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved."
"The solution could be improved by integrating it with data packets."
"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."
"Databricks can improve by making the documentation better."
"I would like to see more documentation in terms of how an end-user could use it, and users like me can easily try it and implement use cases."
"Some of the error messages that we receive are too vague, saying things like "unknown exception", and these should be improved to make it easier for developers to debug problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"DataFlow isn't expensive, but its value for money isn't great."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"Whenever we want to find the actual costing, we have to send an email to Databricks, so having the information available on the internet would be helpful."
"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."
"The billing of Databricks can be difficult and should improve."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"We find Databricks to be very expensive, although this improved when we found out how to shut it down at night."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise60
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today.
What is your primary use case for Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow is used as an ETL or ELT solution within Cloudera's data pipeline. Our organization heavily relies on it for data ingestion, transformation, and warehousing. It is also used daily...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudera DataFlow?
Cloudera DataFlow is fully compatible with Cloudera's ecosystem and offers high efficiency through native connectors for various ecosystems. However, the learning curve is high, and there is a shor...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CDF, Hortonworks DataFlow, HDF
Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clearsense
Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera DataFlow vs. Databricks and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,043 professionals have used our research since 2012.