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Databricks vs SAS Enterprise Miner 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
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (6th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
SAS Enterprise Miner
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 9.3%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAS Enterprise Miner is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks9.3%
SAS Enterprise Miner1.7%
Other89.0%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer1352853 - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Head of analytics at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
A stable product that is easy to deploy and can be used for structured and unstructured data mining
We use the solution for predictive analytics to do structured and unstructured data mining I like the way the product visually shows the data pipeline. The product must provide better integration with cloud-native technologies. I have been using the solution for 20 years. The product is very…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Databricks is a robust solution for big data processing, offering flexibility and powerful features."
"It can send out large data amounts."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the hardware and the resources it quickly provides without much hassle."
"Databricks has a Unified Catalog that assists with secured access and governance."
"The load distribution capabilities are good, and you can perform data processing tasks very quickly."
"Databricks gives us the ability to build a lakehouse framework and do everything implicit to this type of database structure. We also like the ability to stream events. Databricks covers a broad spectrum, from reporting and machine learning to streaming events. It's important for us to have all these features in one platform."
"It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark."
"Automation with Databricks is very easy when using the API."
"The technical support is very good."
"he solution is scalable."
"I like the way the product visually shows the data pipeline."
"The setup is straightforward. Deployment doesn't take more than 30 minutes."
"The most valuable feature is that you can use multiple algorithms for creating models and then you can compare the results between them."
"Performance is excellent."
"Most of the features, especially on the data analysis tool pack, are really good. The way they do clustering and output is great. You can do fairly elaborate outputs. The results, the ensembles, all of these, are fantastic."
"The solution is able to handle quite large amounts of data beautifully."
 

Cons

"Databricks could improve in some of its functionality."
"The product could be improved by offering an expansion of their visualization capabilities, which currently assists in development in their notebook environment."
"The product should incorporate more learning aspects. It needs to have a free trial version that the team can practice."
"Databricks' technical support takes a while to respond and could be improved."
"Databricks is not geared towards the end-user, but rather it is for data engineers or data scientists."
"Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks."
"I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier."
"The data visualization for this solution could be improved. They have started to roll out a data visualization tool inside Databricks but it is in the early stages. It's not comparable to a solution like Power BI, Luca, or Tableau."
"The user interface of the solution needs improvement. It needs to be more visual."
"The solution is much more complex than other options."
"Virtualization could be much better."
"The initial setup is challenging if doing it for the first time."
"Technical support could be improved."
"The ease of use can be improved. When you are new it seems a bit complex."
"The product must provide better integration with cloud-native technologies."
"The solution is very stable, but we do have some problems with discrepancies involving SAS not matching with the latest Java versions. It's not stable in cases where SAS tries to run on a different version because SAS doesn't connect with the latest Java update. Once a month we need to restart systems from scratch."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."
"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."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"We find Databricks to be very expensive, although this improved when we found out how to shut it down at night."
"We only pay for the Azure compute behind the solution."
"I'm not involved in the financing, but I can say that the solution seemed reasonably priced compared to the competitors. Similar products are usually in the same price range. With five being affordable and one being expensive, I would rate Databricks a four out of five."
"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."
"The solution must improve its licensing models."
"The solution is expensive for an individual, but for an enterprise/institution (purchasing bulk licenses), it is not a high price for the use that will come from it."
"This solution is for large corporations because not everybody can afford it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
Enterprise Miner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Generali Hellas, Gitanjali Group, Gloucestershire Constabulary, GS Home Shopping, HealthPartners, IAG New Zealand, iJET, Invacare
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. SAS Enterprise Miner and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.