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Cloudera DataFlow vs Databricks comparison

 

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
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Cloudera DataFlow is 1.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 8.2%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks8.2%
Cloudera DataFlow1.9%
Other89.9%
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."
"This solution is very scalable and robust."
"The initial setup was not so difficult"
"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."
"DataFlow's performance is okay."
"It's great technology."
"I like how easy it is to share your notebook with others. You can give people permission to read or edit. I think that's a great feature. You can also pull in code from GitHub pretty easily. I didn't use it that often, but I think that's a cool feature."
"Databricks has improved my organization by allowing us to transform data from sources to a different format and feed that to the analytics, business intelligence, and reporting teams. This tool makes it easy to do those kinds of things."
"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."
"I like that Databricks is a unified platform that lets you do streaming and batch processing in the same place. You can do analytics, too. They have added something called Databricks SQL Analytics, allowing users to connect to the data lake to perform analytics. Databricks also will enable you to share your data securely. It integrates with your reporting system as well."
"The most valuable feature of Databricks is the notebook, data factory, and ease of use."
"Databricks is a unified solution that we can use for streaming, supporting open source languages that are cloud-agnostic and a lot of Python libraries that I can use very easily, while also letting me reuse my existing Excel or SQL knowledge and limiting the need to learn new things."
"We can scale the product."
 

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."
"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."
"Databricks doesn't offer the use of Python scripts by itself and is not connected to GitHub repositories or anything similar."
"I believe that this product could be improved by becoming more user-friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the documentation of processes and how it works."
"Databricks requires writing code in Python or SQL, so if you're a good programmer then you can use Databricks."
"I would love an integration in my desktop IDE. For now, I have to code on their webpage."
"Generative AI is catching up in areas like data governance and enterprise flavor. Hence, these are places where Databricks has to be faster."
"The initial setup is difficult."
"The integration features could be more interesting, more involved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"DataFlow isn't expensive, but its value for money isn't great."
"We find Databricks to be very expensive, although this improved when we found out how to shut it down at night."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"We implement this solution on behalf of our customers who have their own Azure subscription and they pay for Databricks themselves. The pricing is more expensive if you have large volumes of data."
"The price is okay. It's competitive."
"Databricks uses a price-per-use model, where you can use as much compute as you need."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"We pay as we go, so there isn't a fixed price. It's charged by the unit. I don't have any details detail about how they measure this, but it should be a mix between processing and quantity of data handled. We run a simulation based on our use cases, which gives us an estimate. We've been monitoring this, and the costs have met our expectations."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cloudera DataFlow?
The most effective features are data management and analytics.
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...
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: April 2026.
890,124 professionals have used our research since 2012.