Apache Spark vs. Databricks Data Intelligence Platform vs. Google BigQuery

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Spark
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Apache Spark is a multi-language engine for executing data engineering, data science, and machine learning on single-node machines or clusters.N/A
Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Databricks offers the Databricks Lakehouse Platform (formerly the Unified Analytics Platform), a data science platform and Apache Spark cluster manager. The Databricks Unified Data Service provides a platform for data pipelines, data lakes, and data platforms.
$0.07
Per DBU
Google BigQuery
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Google's BigQuery is part of the Google Cloud Platform, a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) supporting the querying and rapid analysis of enterprise data.
$6.25
per TiB (after the 1st 1 TiB per month, which is free)
Pricing
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard
$0.07
Per DBU
Premium
$0.10
Per DBU
Enterprise
$0.13
Per DBU
Standard edition
$0.04 / slot hour
Enterprise edition
$0.06 / slot hour
Enterprise Plus edition
$0.10 / slot hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Free Trial
NoNoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Considered Multiple Products
Apache Spark
Chose Apache Spark
  • Apache Spark works in distributed mode using cluster
  • Informatica and Datastage cannot scale horizontally
  • We can write custom code in spark, whereas in Datastage and Informatica we can only choose the different features proivided already.
Chose Apache Spark
Databricks uses Spark as a foundation, and is also a great platform. It does bring several add-ons, which we did not feel needed by the time we evaluated - and haven't needed since then. One interesting plus in our opinion was the engineering support, which is great depending …
Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
Chose Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
Databricks notebook give a good managed solution to all of these solutions combined with minimal maintenance
Chose Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
The most important differentiating factor for Databricks Lakehouse Platform from these other platforms is support for ACID transactions and the time travel feature. Also, native integration with managed MLflow is a plus. EMR, Cloudera, and Hortonworks are not as optimized when …
Chose Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
Databricks was picked among other competitors. Closest competition in our organization was H2O.ai and Databricks came out to be more useful for ROI and time to market in our internal research.
We could have used AWS products, however Databricks notebooks and ability to launch …
Google BigQuery
Chose Google BigQuery
When comparing Google BigQuery and Databricks, both platforms are powerful tools for managing and analyzing large datasets. BQ is ideal for businesses requiring large-scale analytics, reporting, and dashboarding with minimal operational overhead. It’s also great for ad-hoc …
Chose Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery needs minimal setup to get it up and running while Amazon Redshift and Oracle Analytics Cloud need moderate expertise and time to load a data set and run a query. Hadoop (open source) and its commercial version Cloudera do not provide a full out of the box …
Chose Google BigQuery
Other locally hosted solutions are capable of providing the required level of performance, but the administration requirements are significantly more involved than with BigQuery. Additionally, there are capacity and availability concerns with locally hosted platforms that are a …
Chose Google BigQuery
BigQuery by far the best solution in all angles compared to other ones: Especially scalability, ease of use, performance and there is no need to manage any cluster of servers. Also it's ABSOLUTELY pay as you go! No one in market currently provide such service that can compete …
Chose Google BigQuery
Comparing to competitors, Google BigQuery has the lowest cost and most flexible pricing model. Definitely higher ROI.
Features
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Apache Spark
-
Ratings
Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
-
Ratings
Google BigQuery
8.5
80 Ratings
0% above category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings00 Ratings8.017 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings00 Ratings9.179 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings00 Ratings8.524 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings00 Ratings8.773 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings00 Ratings8.475 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings00 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudera Manager
Cloudera Manager
Score 9.9 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Analytics Engine
IBM Analytics Engine
Score 7.2 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(24 ratings)
10.0
(18 ratings)
8.8
(77 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(5 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
7.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(4 ratings)
8.7
(2 ratings)
5.3
(11 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache SparkDatabricks Data Intelligence PlatformGoogle BigQuery
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
Well suited: To most of the local run of datasets and non-prod systems - scalability is not a problem at all. Including data from multiple types of data sources is an added advantage. MLlib is a decently nice built-in library that can be used for most of the ML tasks. Less appropriate: We had to work on a RecSys where the music dataset that we used was around 300+Gb in size. We faced memory-based issues. Few times we also got memory errors. Also the MLlib library does not have support for advanced analytics and deep-learning frameworks support. Understanding the internals of the working of Apache Spark for beginners is highly not possible.
Read full review
Databricks
Medium to Large data throughput shops will benefit the most from Databricks Spark processing. Smaller use cases may find the barrier to entry a bit too high for casual use cases. Some of the overhead to kicking off a Spark compute job can actually lead to your workloads taking longer, but past a certain point the performance returns cannot be beat.
Read full review
Google
Event-based data can be captured seamlessly from our data layers (and exported to Google BigQuery). When events like page-views, clicks, add-to-cart are tracked, Google BigQuery can help efficiently with running queries to observe patterns in user behaviour. That intermediate step of trying to "untangle" event data is resolved by Google BigQuery. A scenario where it could possibly be less appropriate is when analysing "granular" details (like small changes to a database happening very frequently).
Read full review
Pros
Apache
  • Rich APIs for data transformation making for very each to transform and prepare data in a distributed environment without worrying about memory issues
  • Faster in execution times compare to Hadoop and PIG Latin
  • Easy SQL interface to the same data set for people who are comfortable to explore data in a declarative manner
  • Interoperability between SQL and Scala / Python style of munging data
Read full review
Databricks
  • Process raw data in One Lake (S3) env to relational tables and views
  • Share notebooks with our business analysts so that they can use the queries and generate value out of the data
  • Try out PySpark and Spark SQL queries on raw data before using them in our Spark jobs
  • Modern day ETL operations made easy using Databricks. Provide access mechanism for different set of customers
Read full review
Google
  • Realtime integration with Google Sheets.
  • GSheet data can be linked to a BigQuery table and the data in that sheet is ingested in realtime into BigQuery. It's a live 'sync' which means it supports insertions, deletions, and alterations. The only limitation here is the schema'; this remains static once the table is created.
  • Seamless integration with other GCP products.
  • A simple pipeline might look like this:-
  • GForms -> GSheets -> BigQuery -> Looker
  • It all links up really well and with ease.
  • One instance holds many projects.
  • Separating data into datamarts or datameshes is really easy in BigQuery, since one BigQuery instance can hold multiple projects; which are isolated collections of datasets.
Read full review
Cons
Apache
  • Memory management. Very weak on that.
  • PySpark not as robust as scala with spark.
  • spark master HA is needed. Not as HA as it should be.
  • Locality should not be a necessity, but does help improvement. But would prefer no locality
Read full review
Databricks
  • Sometimes, when multiple jobs depend on each other in different environments, it is not always easy to see the full workflow in one place.
  • It is sometimes difficult to determine which job or cluster contributes more to the overall cost.
  • For beginners, cluster configuration may be a little difficult. So more recommendation in the platform can help.
Read full review
Google
  • Please expand the availability of documentation, tutorials, and community forums to provide developers with comprehensive support and guidance on using Google BigQuery effectively for their projects.
  • If possible, simplify the pricing model and provide clearer cost breakdowns to help users understand and plan for expenses when using Google BigQuery. Also, some cost reduction is welcome.
  • It still misses the process of importing data into Google BigQuery. Probably, by improving compatibility with different data formats and sources and reducing the complexity of data ingestion workflows, it can be made to work.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Apache
Capacity of computing data in cluster and fast speed.
Read full review
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Google
We have to use this product as its a 3rd party supplier choice to utilise this product for their data side backend so will not be likely we will move away from this product in the future unless the 3rd party supplier decides to change data vendors.
Read full review
Usability
Apache
If the team looking to use Apache Spark is not used to debug and tweak settings for jobs to ensure maximum optimizations, it can be frustrating. However, the documentation and the support of the community on the internet can help resolve most issues. Moreover, it is highly configurable and it integrates with different tools (eg: it can be used by dbt core), which increase the scenarios where it can be used
Read full review
Databricks
Because it is an amazing platform for designing experiments and delivering a deep dive analysis that requires execution of highly complex queries, as well as it allows to share the information and insights across the company with their shared workspaces, while keeping it secured.

in terms of graph generation and interaction it could improve their UI and UX
Read full review
Google
I think overall it is easy to use. I haven't done anything from the development side but an more of an end user of reporting tables built in Google BigQuery. I connect data visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI to the BigQuery reporting tables to analyze trends and create complex dashboards.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Apache
No answers on this topic
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Google
I have never had any significant issues with Google Big Query. It always seems to be up and running properly when I need it. I cannot recall any times where I received any kind of application errors or unplanned outages. If there were any they were resolved quickly by my IT team so I didn't notice them.
Read full review
Performance
Apache
No answers on this topic
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Google
I think Google Big Query's performance is in the acceptable range. Sometimes larger datasets are somewhat sluggish to load but for most of our applications it performs at a reasonable speed. We do have some reports that include a lot of complex calculations and others that run on granular store level data that so sometimes take a bit longer to load which can be frustrating.
Read full review
Support Rating
Apache
1. It integrates very well with scala or python. 2. It's very easy to understand SQL interoperability. 3. Apache is way faster than the other competitive technologies. 4. The support from the Apache community is very huge for Spark. 5. Execution times are faster as compared to others. 6. There are a large number of forums available for Apache Spark. 7. The code availability for Apache Spark is simpler and easy to gain access to. 8. Many organizations use Apache Spark, so many solutions are available for existing applications.
Read full review
Databricks
One of the best customer and technology support that I have ever experienced in my career. You pay for what you get and you get the Rolls Royce. It reminds me of the customer support of SAS in the 2000s when the tools were reaching some limits and their engineer wanted to know more about what we were doing, long before "data science" was even a name. Databricks truly embraces the partnership with their customer and help them on any given challenge.
Read full review
Google
BigQuery can be difficult to support because it is so solid as a product. Many of the issues you will see are related to your own data sets, however you may see issues importing data and managing jobs. If this occurs, it can be a challenge to get to speak to the correct person who can help you.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Apache
Spark in comparison to similar technologies ends up being a one stop shop. You can achieve so much with this one framework instead of having to stitch and weave multiple technologies from the Hadoop stack, all while getting incredibility performance, minimal boilerplate, and getting the ability to write your application in the language of your choosing.
Read full review
Databricks
The most important differentiating factor for Databricks Lakehouse Platform from these other platforms is support for ACID transactions and the time travel feature. Also, native integration with managed MLflow is a plus. EMR, Cloudera, and Hortonworks are not as optimized when it comes to Spark Job Execution. Other platforms need to be self-managed, which is another huge hassle.
Read full review
Google
PowerBI can connect to GA4 for example but the data processing is more complicated and it takes longer to create dashboards. Azure is great once the data import has been configured but it's not an easy task for small businesses as it is with BigQuery.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Apache
No answers on this topic
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Google
None so far. Very satisfied with the transparency on contract terms and pricing model.
Read full review
Scalability
Apache
No answers on this topic
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Google
We have continued to expand out use of Google Big Query over the years. I'd say its flexibility and scalability is actually quite good. It also integrates well with other tools like Tableau and Power BI. It has served the needs of multiple data sources across multiple departments within my company.
Read full review
Professional Services
Apache
No answers on this topic
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Google
Google Support has kindly provide individual support and consultants to assist with the integration work. In the circumstance where the consultants are not present to support with the work, Google Support Helpline will always be available to answer to the queries without having to wait for more than 3 days.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Apache
  • Business leaders are able to take data driven decisions
  • Business users are able access to data in near real time now . Before using spark, they had to wait for at least 24 hours for data to be available
  • Business is able come up with new product ideas
Read full review
Databricks
  • The ability to spin up a BIG Data platform with little infrastructure overhead allows us to focus on business value not admin
  • DB has the ability to terminate/time out instances which helps manage cost.
  • The ability to quickly access typical hard to build data scenarios easily is a strength.
Read full review
Google
  • Previously, running complex queries on our on-premise data warehouse could take hours. Google BigQuery processes the same queries in minutes. We estimate it saves our team at least 25% of their time.
  • We can target our marketing campaigns very easily and understand our customer behaviour. It lets us personalize marketing campaigns and product recommendations and experience at least a 20% improvement in overall campaign performance.
  • Now, we only pay for the resources we use. Saved $1 million annually on data infrastructure and data storage costs compared to our previous solution.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Google BigQuery Screenshots

Screenshot of Migrating data warehouses to BigQuery - Features a streamlined migration path from Netezza, Oracle, Redshift, Teradata, or Snowflake to BigQuery using the fully managed BigQuery Migration Service.Screenshot of bringing any data into BigQuery - Data files can be uploaded from local sources, Google Drive, or Cloud Storage buckets, using BigQuery Data Transfer Service (DTS), Cloud Data Fusion plugins, by replicating data from relational databases with Datastream for BigQuery, or by leveraging Google's data integration partnerships.Screenshot of generative AI use cases with BigQuery and Gemini models - Data pipelines that blend structured data, unstructured data and generative AI models together can be built to create a new class of analytical applications. BigQuery integrates with Gemini 1.0 Pro using Vertex AI. The Gemini 1.0 Pro model is designed for higher input/output scale and better result quality across a wide range of tasks like text summarization and sentiment analysis. It can be accessed using simple SQL statements or BigQuery’s embedded DataFrame API from right inside the BigQuery console.Screenshot of insights derived from images, documents, and audio files, combined with structured data - Unstructured data represents a large portion of untapped enterprise data. However, it can be challenging to interpret, making it difficult to extract meaningful insights from it. Leveraging the power of BigLake, users can derive insights from images, documents, and audio files using a broad range of AI models including Vertex AI’s vision, document processing, and speech-to-text APIs, open-source TensorFlow Hub models, or custom models.Screenshot of event-driven analysis - Built-in streaming capabilities automatically ingest streaming data and make it immediately available to query. This allows users to make business decisions based on the freshest data. Or Dataflow can be used to enable simplified streaming data pipelines.Screenshot of predicting business outcomes AI/ML - Predictive analytics can be used to streamline operations, boost revenue, and mitigate risk. BigQuery ML democratizes the use of ML by empowering data analysts to build and run models using existing business intelligence tools and spreadsheets.