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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
20th
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
94
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (4th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Streaming Analytics category, the mindshare of Cloudera DataFlow is 2.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Databricks is 7.5%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks7.5%
Cloudera DataFlow2.8%
Other89.7%
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."
"DataFlow's performance is okay."
"Cloudera DataFlow is fully compatible with Cloudera's ecosystem and offers high efficiency through native connectors for various ecosystems."
"The initial setup was not so difficult"
"This solution is very scalable and robust."
"The processing capacity is tremendous in the database."
"Databricks is based on a Spark cluster and it is fast. Performance-wise, it is great."
"I like the ability to use workspaces with other colleagues because you can work together even without seeing the other team's job, so you can create a robust solution by working together with other professionals."
"The setup was straightforward."
"Databricks helps crunch petabytes of data in a very short period of time for data scientists or business analysts, helping with fraud analysis, finance, projections, and more, which is exactly the purpose of big data and analytics."
"Databricks serves as a single platform for conducting the entire end-to-end lifecycle of machine learning models or AI ops."
"It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark."
"The capacity of use of the different types of coding is valuable. Databricks also has good performance because it is running in spark extra storage, meaning the performance and the capacity use different kinds of codes."
 

Cons

"Cloudera DataFlow's UI interface could be enhanced significantly. Memory handling can also be improved to be better than it is today."
"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."
"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's an outdated legacy product that doesn't meet the needs of modern data analysts and scientists."
"I would like more integration with SQL for using data in different workspaces."
"Anyone who doesn't know SQL may find the product difficult to work with."
"Pricing is one of the things that could be improved. Also, there could be improvement in the visual analytics space there and on the machine learning functions."
"So far, we're not measuring any return on investment, such as saving time, money, or resources with Databricks."
"This solution only supports queries in SQL and Python, which is a bit limiting."
"Databricks has a lack of debuggers, and it would be good to see more components."
"The solution could be improved by adding a feature that would make it more user-friendly for our team. The feature is simple, but it would be useful. Currently, our team is more familiar with the language R, but Databricks requires the use of Jupyter Notebooks which primarily supports Python. We have tried using RStudio, but it is not a fully integrated solution. To fully utilize Databricks, we have to use the Jupyter interface. One feature that would make it easier for our team to adopt the Jupyter interface would be the ability to select a specific variable or line of code and execute it within a cell. This feature is available in other Jupyter Notebooks outside of Databricks and in our own IDE, but it is not currently available within Databricks. If this feature were added, it would make the transition to using Databricks much smoother for our team."
"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."
"There are different versions."
"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."
"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."
"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."
"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software 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 Enterprise12
Large Enterprise58
 

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: June 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.