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Databricks vs IBM SPSS Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 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

Databricks
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (7th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
IBM SPSS Modeler
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 18.2%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 2.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.
PeterHuo - PeerSpot reviewer
Good tool for extracting data from data warehouses, creating streams, and manipulating logic to extract final data
There are performance issues. Extracting data from many combined tables can take hours and occasionally crash the server due to memory leaks. This performance problem bothers people. The performance issue seems to be related to the server. We design streams on the client and submit them to the server, which generates a large SQL statement. There are two potential bottlenecks: one in the server and another in data extraction. I'm unsure about the exact mechanics of data splitting when fetching from the database. When streams become larger, performance bottlenecks may occur in the IBM SPSS Modeler server or the database. Sometimes the server crashes and needs to be restarted to release memory on both sides. I'm not sure exactly where the problem is caused, as I focus on stream design rather than server issues. The problem could be on the IBM SPSS Modeler server and database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is its notebook. It's quite convenient to use, both terms of the research and the development and also the final deployment, I can just declare the spark jobs by the load tables. It's quite convenient."
"Easy to use and requires minimal coding and customizations."
"The solution is easy to use and has a quick start-up time due to being on the cloud."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"Databricks is a robust solution for big data processing, offering flexibility and powerful features."
"The most valuable feature is the Spark cluster which is very fast for heavy loads, big data processing and Pi Spark."
"The time travel feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"Automated modelling, classification, or clustering are very useful."
"It’s definitely scalable, it’s all on the same platform, it’s well integrated. I think the integration is important in terms of scalablility because essentially, having the entire suite helps a lot to scale it"
"The visual modeling capability is one of its attractive features."
"It is just a lot faster. So you do not have to write a bunch of code, you can throw that stuff on there pretty quickly and do prototyping quickly."
"It is very scalable for non-technical people."
"It's very easy to use. The drag and drop feature makes it very easy when you are building and testing the streams. That's very useful."
"​It works fine. I have not had any stability issues; it is always up.​"
"I think the code modeling features are the most valuable and without the need to write a code back with many different possibilities to choose from. And the second one is linked to the activity of the data preparation."
 

Cons

"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."
"Performance could be improved."
"I would like it if Databricks adopted an interface more like R Studio. When I create a data frame or a table, R Studio provides a preview of the data. In R Studio, I can see that it created a table with so many columns or rows. Then I can click on it and open a preview of that data."
"I would like to see the integration between Databricks and MLflow improved. It is quite hard to train multiple models in parallel in the distributed fashions. You hit rate limits on the clients very fast."
"Databricks could improve in some of its functionality."
"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."
"When I used the support, I had communication problems because of the language barrier with the agent. The accent was difficult to understand."
"The product could be improved regarding the delay when switching to higher-performing virtual machines compared to other platforms."
"Customer support is hard to contact."
"When you are not using the product, such as during the pandemic where we had worldwide lockdowns, you still have to pay for the licensing."
"Neural networks are quite simple, and now neural networks are evolving to these architecture related to deep learning, etc. They didn't incorporate this in IBM SPSS Modeler."
"Dimension reduction should be classified separately."
"​I would like better integration into the Weather Company solution. I have raised a couple of concerns about this integration and having more time series capabilities.​"
"Requires more development."
"The standard package (personal) is not supported for database connection."
"The platform's cloud version needs improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution requires a subscription."
"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."
"Databricks is a very expensive solution. Pricing is an area that could definitely be improved. They could provide a lower end compute and probably reduce the price."
"The basic version of this solution is now open-source, so there are no license costs involved. However, there is a charge for any advanced functionality and this can be quite expensive."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."
"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The pricing depends on the usage itself."
"The scalability was kind of limited by our ability to get other people licenses, and that was usually more of a financial constraint. It's expensive, but it's a good tool."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten users use the server with ten licenses, it runs faster. But if forty users use the same appliance, everything slows down. People then think it's not easy to do things and prefer using remote tools like Python to extract data from the database. It's not about being expensive or cheap, but about people's knowledge and experience in how to do the work."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It is a huge increase to time savings."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
12%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about IBM SPSS Modeler?
Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Modeler?
The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten us...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?
There are performance issues. Extracting data from many combined tables can take hours and occasionally crash the server due to memory leaks. This performance problem bothers people. The performanc...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
SPSS Modeler
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Reisebªro Idealtours GmbH, MedeAnalytics, Afni, Israel Electric Corporation, Nedbank Ltd., DigitalGlobe, Vodafone Hungary, Aegon Hungary, Bureau Veritas, Brammer Group, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, InSites Consulting, Fortis Turkey
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. IBM SPSS Modeler and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.