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Databricks vs Looker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Parag Bhosale - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrating engineering and learning, but cost challenges arise with cluster management
We often use a single cluster to ingest Databricks, which Databricks doesn't recommend. They suggest using a no-cluster solution like job clusters. This can be overwhelming for us because we started smaller. We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly. We need to stay in sync with the DVR versions, and migrations can pose challenges. For example, issues arose when we moved a cluster from a previous version to the latest one. We could use their job clusters, however, that increases costs, which is challenging for us as a startup. Maintaining this infrastructure can be a headache.
Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive
Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Databricks' most valuable feature is the data transformation through PySpark."
"We are completely satisfied with the ease of connecting to different sources of data or pocket files in the search"
"When we have a huge volume of data that we want to process with speed, velocity, and volume, we go through Databricks."
"It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark."
"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."
"Databricks gives you the flexibility of using several programming languages independently or in combination to build models."
"It is fast, it's scalable, and it does the job it needs to do."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."
"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"The product is easy to use."
"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."
 

Cons

"It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."
"The integration and query capabilities can be improved."
"I have had some issues with some of the Spark clusters running on Databricks, where the Spark runtime and clusters go up and down, which is an area for improvement."
"A lot of people are required to manage this solution."
"The product needs samples and templates to help invite users to see results and understand what the product can do."
"There would also be benefits if more options were available for workers, or the clusters of the two points."
"The initial setup is difficult."
"I'm not the guy that I'm working with Databricks on a daily basis. I'm on the management team. However, my team tells me there are limitations with streaming events. The connectors work with a small set of platforms. For example, we can work with Kafka, but if we want to move to an event-driven solution from AWS, we cannot do it. We cannot connect to all the streaming analytics platforms, so we are limited in choosing the best one."
"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"Stability needs improvement."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"The product does not have documented material."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."
"Databricks' cost could be improved."
"The solution requires a subscription."
"I do not exactly know the costs, but one of our clients pays between $100 USD and $200 USD monthly."
"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."
"The price of Databricks is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"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."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."
"It is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
38%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Looker?
With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?
I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...
What needs improvement with Looker?
The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
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