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Databricks review: Unified data, analytics and AI platform with pay-as-you-go pricing per DBU

Prices not verifiedFree trialAI Marketing

Unified data, analytics and AI platform with pay-as-you-go pricing per DBU

Prices not verified, free plan: yes, free trial: Free trial available; no credit card required to get started.

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Databricks home page

What Databricks does

Databricks is a platform that brings data engineering, warehousing, analytics, governance and AI together. It is built on a lakehouse design, which joins the low-cost storage of a data lake with the SQL abilities of a warehouse, using open formats such as Delta Lake. The vendor says it suits organizations of any size, from startups to global enterprises.

Products named on the official site include Lakebase, a serverless Postgres database for applications; Lakeflow for batch and streaming pipelines; Genie, a conversational interface where business users ask questions of their data in plain language; Agent Bricks for building AI agents on company data; Unity Catalog for governance; and Unity Gateway, which manages access, spend and observability across AI agents, tools and models.

Billing is usage-based with no up-front costs, charged at per second granularity. There is no fixed monthly or yearly plan price. Committed use contracts can bring discounts. A free trial is offered without a credit card, and Community Edition is a free, limited platform meant for people learning Spark.

  • Serverless Postgres database (Lakebase)
  • Natural-language analytics with Genie
  • Batch and streaming ETL with Lakeflow
  • AI agents built on your own data
  • Unified governance across data, models and agents
  • Cost control and observability for AI via Unity Gateway
  • Serverless data warehousing on open lake data
  • Delta Sharing for live data

Official video

Governing AI Agents with Unity Catalog and Unity Gateway on Databricks | Unity Catalog Demo · by Databricks ·
The player loads only when you press play.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Covers ETL, warehousing, governance, databases and AI agents on one platform
  • Built on open source projects such as Apache Spark, Delta Lake and MLflow
  • Usage-based billing at per second granularity with no up-front costs
  • Committed use contracts offer discounts for larger usage levels
  • Free trial that needs no credit card to get started

Cons

  • No fixed monthly or yearly plan price; costs depend on DBU or CU consumption
  • Storage, networking and cloud provider charges vary and add to compute costs
  • Pay-as-you-go accounts need a valid credit card on file
  • Trial credits are not transferable and cannot be combined with other promotions
  • Community Edition has limited functionality and targets people learning Spark

Our take

Databricks fits data and AI teams that want pipelines, warehousing, governance, databases and AI agents on a single platform and are comfortable paying for what they consume. It is a weaker match for anyone who needs a flat monthly price, because the pages publish only starting rates per DBU or CU, and storage, networking and cloud provider charges come on top depending on setup. Buyers should size their workloads with the pricing calculator listed on the site or request a pricing quote before committing.

Coming soon

Coming soon — we are writing comparisons that include Databricks.

Databricks pricing

Prices not verified — the official pricing could not be confirmed; check the vendor's site: official pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free option?

Yes. The site offers a free trial that needs no credit card, and Community Edition is a free platform with limited functionality designed for learning Spark.

Does Databricks charge for storage and cloud resources?

Pricing is based on compute usage. Storage, networking and related costs vary by service and cloud provider, and with your own cloud account your cloud provider bills you for its resources.

What happens when the trial ends?

You are automatically subscribed to the plan you used during the trial, may need to enter a valid payment method, and can cancel at any time.

What is a DBU?

A Databricks Unit is a normalized unit of processing power used for measurement and pricing, driven by metrics such as compute resources used and data processed.

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