Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

The compared Databricks and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Databricks is ranked #9 in CDW , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 10.0% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 8.9% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Databricks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Databricks

Read 93 Databricks reviews

18,865 Views
2,075 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 328 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,151 Views
14,585 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Databricks

Microsoft Power BI

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Microsoft Power BI and Databricks compete in the business intelligence and data analytics category. Power BI has the upper hand in visualization and integration within the Microsoft ecosystem, while Databricks stands strong in advanced data processing and machine learning through Spark.

Features: Microsoft Power BI offers seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem, rich visualization capabilities, and ease of use with Microsoft Office applications. Databricks provides a scalable, collaborative platform for big data processing, advanced machine learning features through Spark, and integrated notebooks.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Power BI needs improvement in handling large datasets and navigation with non-Microsoft data sources. Its mobile application usability and the learning curve for non-technical users can also be enhanced. Databricks could benefit from more user-friendly interfaces and greater accessibility for non-data scientists, as well as improved cost management and stronger integration with business intelligence tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI offers flexible deployment options in public and private clouds, with supportive community resources despite mixed reviews on official support responsiveness. Databricks emphasizes cloud capabilities for scalable deployment, although its cost and complexity can challenge some users despite offering beneficial collaborative features and supportive feedback avenues.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Power BI is known for cost-effective licensing, providing a free desktop version and competitively priced Pro and Premium licenses, delivering high ROI through enhanced data accessibility. Databricks, while powerful, leans towards higher expenses with its pay-as-you-go model but provides significant ROI in environments needing extensive analytics processing.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Data Warehouse Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Data Warehouse

February 2026

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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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.5

Databricks reduces costs and boosts efficiency, yet some users struggle to realize financial gains despite improved productivity.

Sentiment score

6.7

Microsoft Power BI offers rapid cost savings, improved reporting, ease of use, scalability, and boosts data-driven decisions and revenue.

This reduction in both time and money resulted in real-time impact and significant cost savings.

Satyam Wagh

Consultant at Nice Software Solutions

For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.

Parag Bhosale

Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees

When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.

IshwarSukheja

Head CEO at bizmetric

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.

Michael Ostfeld

Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding

Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.9

Databricks support is professional and responsive, with users appreciating efficient issue resolution and effective assistance despite occasional delays.

Sentiment score

6.6

Microsoft Power BI users appreciate responsive service and online resources but seek faster, more expert support for complex issues.

Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.

Parag Bhosale

Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees

As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.

Prabhakar Bonam

Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA

I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.

Lax Kas

Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.

Michael Ostfeld

Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding

We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.

James Balbach

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

The support is good because there is also a community available.

MohammedHamad

Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

Databricks is praised for scalable, cost-effective cloud compatibility, efficient data handling, and seamless integration with Azure and AWS.

Sentiment score

6.9

Microsoft Power BI offers scalable performance but may require higher tiers and vertical scaling for large datasets, ensuring integration with Microsoft products.

The sky's the limit with Databricks.

SimonRobinson

Governance And Engagement Lead

The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.

Parag Bhosale

Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees

Databricks is an easily scalable platform.

Prabhakar Bonam

Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.

James Balbach

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.

Raymond De Rooij

Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Databricks is generally stable and reliable, with occasional glitches, handling large data sets effectively according to users.

Sentiment score

7.4

Microsoft Power BI is reliable with real-time capabilities, but large datasets can cause performance issues and occasional slowness.

They release patches that sometimes break our code.

Parag Bhosale

Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees

Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.

Prabhakar Bonam

Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA

Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.

AvivCohen

Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.

James Balbach

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.

MohammedHamad

Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Room For Improvement

Databricks requires better visualization, integration, pricing, user experience, scalability, and documentation to enhance functionality and user adaptation.

Microsoft Power BI struggles with performance, integration, user interface, customization, licensing, and frequent updates, needing enhanced analytics capabilities.

Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.

ShubhamSharma7

Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

Parag Bhosale

Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees

We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.

Rama Subba Reddy Thavva

Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.

Michael Ostfeld

Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding

Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.

James Balbach

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Setup Cost

Databricks offers competitive, flexible pay-per-use pricing, but costs vary by usage, often higher than open-source alternatives.

Enterprise buyers appreciate Microsoft Power BI's competitive pricing and flexibility, with cost-effective options and integration with Office 365.

It is not a cheap solution.

Prabhakar Bonam

Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA

I believe that in terms of credits for Databricks, we're spending between £15,000 and £20,000 a month.

SimonRobinson

Governance And Engagement Lead

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

I found the setup cost to be expensive

Sebastien TOUSSAINT

Responsable du département Projets et Applications at CHD Vendée

Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.

MohammedHamad

Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Valuable Features

Databricks offers scalable analytics with powerful machine learning, seamless cloud integration, and efficient data governance for rapid data processing.

Microsoft Power BI excels in data integration, visualization, and collaboration, offering user-friendly features and scalability for business needs.

Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.

ShubhamSharma7

Data Engineer at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.

Prabhakar Bonam

Data Platform Architect at KELLANOVA

The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.

Lax Kas

Data Engineer at CRAFT Tech

For more quotes and insights, download the Databricks report

In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.

Michael Ostfeld

Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding

Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.

Raymond De Rooij

Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.

To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.

Shrikrishna Kashid

Senior Technical Service Engineer Expert at Fujitsu

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Power BI report

Categories and Ranking

Databricks

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Microsoft Power BI

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

328

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 10.0%, up 7.2% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 8.9% mindshare, down 21.4% since last year.

Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Databricks	10.0%
Snowflake	15.9%
Teradata	8.4%
Other	65.7%

Cloud Data Warehouse

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	8.9%
Tableau Enterprise	6.2%
Amazon QuickSight	3.7%
Other	81.2%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

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

Antonio Flor

Lead Anaplanner at Chaucer Group

Data integration has improved reserving and expense control while collaboration drives fast dashboards

Regarding drawbacks or weak points in Microsoft Power BI, it may not be directly related to the tool itself, but with our architecture, as we couldn't get a service account, which is an email address that has no relationship with the employees, just to establish the connection with Anaplan. We couldn't get it to work on SSO, so we use an employee account which could be a point of weakness, meaning if the person leaves, that connection will break. If the person goes on holiday and we need to refresh, we have to change the connection as well, but we have to live with that since we're not using SSO on the service account. Regarding the natural language processing feature, we're trying to avoid using it too much because it can slow down the connection, so as much as possible, we try to build the logic and any transformation in Anaplan, and then deliver an end product to Microsoft Power BI.

Read full review

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	56

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	135
Midsize Enterprise	58
Large Enterprise	165

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

See all answers

How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

Dremio vs Databricks

Compared 4% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Databricks

Compared 4% of the time

Alteryx vs Databricks

Compared 3% of the time

H2O.ai vs Databricks

Compared 3% of the time

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Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 15% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

February 2026

Download Databricks product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

February 2026

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

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

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Teradata and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: February 2026.

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