No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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 (4th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)
SAS Enterprise Miner
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
23rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Databricks is 8.3%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAS Enterprise Miner is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Databricks8.3%
SAS Enterprise Miner1.8%
Other89.9%
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 allows me to automate the creation of a cluster, optimized for machine learning and construct AI machine learning models for the client."
"Databricks integrates well with other solutions."
"Databricks has a scalable Spark cluster creation process, and the creators of Databricks are also the creators of Spark, and they are the industry leaders in terms of performance."
"The solution is easy to use and has a quick start-up time due to being on the cloud."
"By going through this solution, we were able to complete the processing of the data in half an hour."
"Databricks is scalable, it operates three times faster than any of the other ecosystems which we have experimented on."
"The ability to stream data and the windowing feature are valuable."
"Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R."
"The most valuable feature is that you can use multiple algorithms for creating models and then you can compare the results between them."
"It enables statistical modeling of data using Base SAS (another product from the same vendor) as the backbone."
"The solution is very good for data mining or any mining issues."
"I like the way the product visually shows the data pipeline."
"SAS internal support is very qualified and if we have any issues, we contact them and trust that they can help."
"Technical support has been good, and when I called them at the start of using the product with some issues they were very helpful."
"The technical support is very good."
"The solution is very good for data mining or any mining issues."
 

Cons

"Implementation of Databricks is still very code heavy."
"If I want to create a Databricks account, I need to have a prior cloud account such as an AWS account or an Azure account. Only then can I create a Databricks account on the cloud. However, if they can make it so that I can still try Databricks even if I don't have a cloud account on AWS and Azure, it would be great. That is, it would be nice if it were possible to create a pseudo account and be provided with a free trial. It is very essential to creating a workforce on Databricks. For example, students or corporate staff can then explore and learn Databricks."
"I have seen better user interfaces, so that is something that can be improved."
"The solution could be improved by adding a feature that would make it more user-friendly for our team. The feature is simple, but it would be useful. Currently, our team is more familiar with the language R, but Databricks requires the use of Jupyter Notebooks which primarily supports Python. We have tried using RStudio, but it is not a fully integrated solution. To fully utilize Databricks, we have to use the Jupyter interface. One feature that would make it easier for our team to adopt the Jupyter interface would be the ability to select a specific variable or line of code and execute it within a cell. This feature is available in other Jupyter Notebooks outside of Databricks and in our own IDE, but it is not currently available within Databricks. If this feature were added, it would make the transition to using Databricks much smoother for our team."
"A couple of times I faced an issue where a long-running process was consuming a lot of time and then stopped abruptly."
"Databricks is not geared towards the end-user, but rather it is for data engineers or data scientists."
"One area of improvement is the Databricks File System (DBFS), where command-line challenges arise when accessing files. Standardization of file paths on the system could help, as engineers sometimes struggle."
"Can be improved by including drag-and-drop features."
"The user interface of the solution needs improvement. It needs to be more visual."
"The preparation of both the mining and modeling process could be improved. The solution requires data and will reflect data, but the preparation of the data is not useful for end-users; we ended up having to do the preparation in another tool."
"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."
"The solution is much more complex than other options."
"The license is really expensive. This solution is for large corporations because not everybody can afford it."
"The product must provide better integration with cloud-native technologies."
"Plus it is prohibitively expensive and is not available with perpetual licensing."
"Virtualization could be much better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is okay. It's competitive."
"My smallest project is around a hundred euros, and my most expensive is just under a thousand euros a week. That is based on terabytes of data processed each month."
"There are different versions."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"We only pay for the Azure compute behind the solution."
"Databricks uses a price-per-use model, where you can use as much compute as you need."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"This solution is for large corporations because not everybody can afford it."
"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."
"The solution must improve its licensing models."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Science Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.