Databricks vs IBM SPSS Modeler comparison

Databricks and IBM are both solutions in the Data Science Platforms category. Databricks is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0. Databricks holds a 9.3% mindshare in Data Science Platforms, compared to IBM’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Databricks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Databricks

Read 93 Databricks reviews

18,865 Views
8,112 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

IBM SPSS Modeler

Read 40 IBM SPSS Modeler reviews

2,695 Views
1,967 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Databricks

IBM SPSS Modeler

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

IBM SPSS Modeler and Databricks are data analytics competitors. Databricks has the upper hand due to its scalability and real-time processing for large-scale operations.

Features: IBM SPSS Modeler offers robust statistical tools, intuitive flowchart modeling, and effective predictive analytics. Databricks provides strong integration with big data technologies, advanced machine learning workflows, and collaboration through its notebook interface.

Room for Improvement: IBM SPSS Modeler could enhance its cloud capabilities and collaboration features. It may also benefit from more advanced machine learning tools. Databricks can improve by simplifying its initial adaptation to cloud environments, optimizing cost for smaller operations, and streamlining complex workflows for non-technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SPSS Modeler is straightforward to deploy on-premise with minimal cloud infrastructure and offers attentive customer service. Databricks supports quick, cloud-native deployments with strong team collaboration but may require additional training for cloud acclimation.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SPSS Modeler generally presents lower initial setup costs with good ROI for small and mid-sized statistical analyses. Databricks, while involving higher upfront investment, often yields a higher long-term ROI through its scalability and big data capabilities, justifying the initial expense for extensive data operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Databricks vs. IBM SPSS Modeler Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Databricks vs. IBM SPSS Modeler

December 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)

IBM SPSS Modeler

Ranking in Data Science Platforms

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Mining (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 9.3%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 3.5%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Science Platforms Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Databricks	9.3%
IBM SPSS Modeler	3.5%
Other	87.2%

Data Science Platforms

Featured Reviews

Satyam Wagh

Consultant at Nice Software Solutions

Unified data workflows have cut ticket processing times and are driving faster business insights

Databricks already provides monthly updates and continuously works on delivering new features while enhancing existing ones. However, the platform could become easier to use. While instruction-led workshops are available, offering more free instructional workshops would allow a wider audience to access and learn about Databricks. Additionally, providing use cases would help beginners gain more knowledge and hands-on experience. Regarding my experience, I was initially unfamiliar with the platform and had to conduct research and learn through various videos. I did find some instruction-led classes, but several of those required payment. The platform should provide more free resources to enable a broader audience to access and learn about Databricks. The platform itself is user-friendly and easy to use without complex issues, so I believe it does not need improvement in its core functionality. Rather, supporting aspects can be enhanced.

Read full review

Prof. Dr. Rudolf Bisping

Business Owner at SASS GmbH

Support and flexibility enable effective project initiation and meet customer needs but deployment requires enhancement

The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a solution, and then I convert my MATLAB solution to C programming language. This I can deploy, and I can check it, and it is MISRA compatible. It is very easy to deploy it, to go from MATLAB to C or C++, which is actually needed in the car industry. In the car industry, they want to have it in the hardware. You cannot put MATLAB or IBM SPSS Modeler in the hardware of a car, but with C, there is no problem with a microcontroller. They can shoot it into the microcontroller, and I can check it with Polyspace, and it is MISRA compatible, which is an industrial standard. There is nothing similar in IBM SPSS Modeler. I made solutions with IBM SPSS Modeler, and then the customer said they wanted to make a production out of it, and it was not possible. I stopped with IBM SPSS Modeler 18. It is now 18.6 from what I know at the moment. I do not believe that there is a possibility to design a graphic user interface with it. It is itself a graphic user interface, where you put all sorts of little icons into the display.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The notebooks and the ability to share them with collaborators are valuable, as multiple developers can use a single cluster."

"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."

"I would rate them ten out of ten."

"The most significant benefit Databricks has brought to my company is the Unity Catalog."

"This solution offers a lake house data concept that we have found exciting. We are able to have a large amount of data in a data lake and can manage all relational activities."

"What I like about Databricks is that it's one of the most popular platforms that give access to folks who are trying not just to do exploratory work on the data but also go ahead and build advanced modeling and machine learning on top of that."

"The solution is easy to use and has a quick start-up time due to being on the cloud."

More Databricks pros

"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."

"Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding."

"Automated modelling, classification, or clustering are very useful."

"We are creating models and putting them into production much faster than we would if we had just gone with a strict, code-based solution, like R or Python."

"It will scale up to anything we need."

"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 scales. I have not run into any challenges where it will not perform."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pros

Cons

"Databricks is not geared towards the end-user, but rather it is for data engineers or data scientists."

"The integration and query capabilities can be improved."

"It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."

"In the future, I would like to see Data Lake support. That is something that I'm looking forward to."

"As a data engineer, I see cluster failure in our Databricks user databases as a major issue."

"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."

"Databricks would benefit from enhanced metrics and tighter integration with Azure's diagnostics."

"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."

More Databricks cons

"Regarding visual modeling, it is not the biggest strength of the product, although from what I hear in the latest release it's going to be a lot stronger. That, to me, has always been the biggest flaw in using this. It's very difficult to get good visualization."

"It would be helpful if SPSS supported open-source features, for example, embedding R or Python scripts in SPSS Modeler."

"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."

"We have run into a few problems doing some entity matching/analytics."

"Requires more development."

"The standard package (personal) is not supported for database connection."

"Time Series or forecasting needs to be easier. It is a very important feature, and it should be made easier and more automated to use. For instance, for logistic regression, binary or multinomial is used automatically based on the type of the target variable. I wish they can make Time Series easier to use in a similar way."

"Customer support is hard to contact."

More IBM SPSS Modeler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage itself."

"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."

"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."

"We only pay for the Azure compute behind the solution."

"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."

"The product pricing is moderate."

"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."

"Databricks' cost could be improved."

More Databricks pricing and cost advice

"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."

"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."

"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."

"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."

"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."

"It is an expensive product."

"$5,000 annually."

"When you are close to end of quarter, IBM and its partners can get you 60% to 70% discounts, so literally wait for the last day of the quarter for the best prices. You may feel like you are getting robbed if you can't receive a good discount."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

University

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	56

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	32

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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Modeler?

I have been using IBM SPSS Modeler for a long time. I am using IBM SPSS Modeler mainly for ETL. Sometimes I use it to compare the results of the modeling as compared to MATLAB. MATLAB is the main t...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

January 2026

Download Databricks product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Modeler

January 2026

Download IBM SPSS Modeler product report

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

SPSS Modeler

Overview

Databricks offers a scalable, versatile platform that integrates seamlessly with Spark and multiple languages, supporting data engineering, machine learning, and analytics in a unified environment.

Databricks stands out for its scalability, ease of use, and powerful integration with Spark, multiple languages, and leading cloud services like Azure and AWS. It provides tools such as the Notebook for collaboration, Delta Lake for efficient data management, and Unity Catalog for data governance. While enhancing data engineering and machine learning workflows, it faces challenges in visualization and third-party integration, with pricing and user interface navigation being common concerns. Despite needing improvements in connectivity and documentation, it remains popular for tasks like real-time processing and data pipeline management.

What features make Databricks unique?

Notebook: Enables collaborative work among team members.
Delta Lake: Optimizes data management operations.
Unity Catalog: Provides governance over data assets.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly connects with major cloud platforms.

What benefits can users expect from Databricks?

Versatility: Supports diverse applications in data science and engineering.
Performance: Delivers efficient handling of large-scale analytics tasks.
Collaboration: Enhances teamwork in data projects.
Unified Environment: Centralizes machine learning and analytics activities.

In the tech industry, Databricks empowers teams to perform comprehensive data analytics, enabling them to conduct extensive ETL operations, run predictive modeling, and prepare data for SparkML. In retail, it supports real-time data processing and batch streaming, aiding in better decision-making. Enterprises across sectors leverage its capabilities for creating secure APIs and managing data lakes effectively.

Databricks

IBM SPSS Modeler is an extensive predictive analytics platform that is designed to bring predictive intelligence to decisions made by individuals, groups, systems and the enterprise. By providing a range of advanced algorithms and techniques that include text analytics, entity analytics, decision management and optimization, SPSS Modeler can help you consistently make the right decisions from the desktop or within operational systems.

Buy
https://www.ibm.com/products/spss-modeler/pricing

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https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-19947

IBM

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

Buyer's Guide

Databricks vs. IBM SPSS Modeler

December 2025

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