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Comment by dahcryn

3 days ago

I don't think there is anything out there that really bundles everything exactly like databricks does.

There are better storage solutions, better compute and better AI/ML platforms, but once you start with databricks, you dig yourself a hole because the replacing it is hard because it has such a specific subset of features across multiple domains.

In our multinational environment, we have a few companies that are on different tech stacks (result of M&A). I can say Snowflake can do a lot of the things Databricks does, but not everything. Teradata is also great and somehow not gaining a lot of traction. But they are near impossible to get into as a startup, which does not attract new talent to give it a go.

On the ML side, Dataiku and Datarobot are great.

Tools like Talend, snaplogic, fivetran are also really good at replacing parts of databricks.

So you see, there are better alternatives for sure, cheaper at the same time too, but there is no drop-in replacement I can think of

Exactly this. But you don't really want to bundle straight away -- think about the exact problem you have and then solve exactly that problem. After you've sorted a few problems like this think if a bundled platform is useful.

Thanks for this. Lots to look into.

Maybe I wasn't super clear. Wasn't looking for a 1:1 replacement.

Trying to understand what other options are out there for small teams / projects that don't need all those enterprise features that Databricks offers (governance etc).