Databricks vs Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio comparison

Databricks is an industry-leading data analytics platform which is a one-stop product for all data requirements. Databricks is made by the creators of Apache Spark, Delta Lake, ML Flow, and Koalas. It builds on these technologies to deliver a true lakehouse data architecture, making it a robust platform that is reliable, scalable, and fast. Databricks speeds up innovations by synthesizing storage, engineering, business operations, security, and data science.

Databricks is integrated with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform. This enables users to easily manage a colossal amount of data and to continuously train and deploy machine learning models for AI applications. The platform handles all analytic deployments, ranging from ETL to models training and deployment.

Databricks deciphers the complexities of processing data to empower data scientists, engineers, and analysts with a simple collaborative environment to run interactive and scheduled data analysis workloads. The program takes advantage of AI’s cost-effectivity, flexibility, and cloud storage.

Databricks Key Features

Some of Databricks key features include:

• Cloud-native: Works well on any prominent cloud provider.
  
• Data storage: Stores a broad range of data, including structured, unstructured, and streaming.
  
• Self-governance: Built-in governance and security controls.
  
• Flexibility: Flexible for small-scale jobs as well as running large-scale jobs like Big Data processing because it’s built from Spark and is specifically optimized for Cloud environments.
  
• Data science tools: Production-ready data tooling, from engineering to BI, AI, and ML.
  
• Familiar languages: While Databricks is Spark-based, it allows commonly used programming languages like R, SQL, Scala, and Python to be used.
  
• Team sharing workspaces: Creates an environment that provides interactive workspaces for collaboration, which allow multiple members to collaborate for data model creation, machine learning, and data extraction.
  
• Data source: Performs limitless Big Data analytics by connecting to Cloud providers AWS, Azure, and Google, as well as on-premises SQL servers, JSON and CSV.

Reviews from Real Users

Databricks stands out from its competitors for several reasons. Two striking features are its collaborative ability and its ability to streamline multiple programming languages.

PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features. A Chief Research Officer in consumer goods writes, “We work with multiple people on notebooks and it enables us to work collaboratively in an easy way without having to worry about the infrastructure. I think the solution is very intuitive, very easy to use. And that's what you pay for.”

A business intelligence coordinator in construction notes, “The capacity of use of the different types of coding is valuable. Databricks also has good performance because it is running in spark extra storage, meaning the performance and the capacity use different kinds of codes.”

An Associate Manager who works in consultancy mentions, “The technology that allows us to write scripts within the solution is extremely beneficial. If I was, for example, able to script in SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python, I would be able to use my knowledge to make a script in this solution. It is very user-friendly and you can also process the records and validation point of view. The ability to migrate from one environment to another is useful.”

Azure Machine Learning is a cloud predictive analytics service that makes it possible to quickly create and deploy predictive models as analytics solutions.

It has everything you need to create complete predictive analytics solutions in the cloud, from a large algorithm library, to a studio for building models, to an easy way to deploy your model as a web service. Quickly create, test, operationalize, and manage predictive models.

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Will Help You:

• Rapidly build and train models
• Operationalize at scale
• Deliver responsible solutions
• Innovate on a more secure hybrid platform

With Microsoft Azure Machine Learning You Can:

• Prepare data: Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio offers data labeling, data preparation, and datasets.
• Build and train models: Includes notebooks, Visual Studio Code and Github, Automated ML, Compute instance, a drag-and-drop designer, open-source libraries and frameworks, customizable dashboards, and experiments
• Validate and deploy: Manage endpoints, automate machine learning workflows (pipeline CI/CD), optimize models, access pre-built container images, share and track models and data, train and deploy models across multi-cloud and on-premises.
• Manage and monitor: Track, log, and analyze data, models, and resources; Detect drift and maintain model accuracy; Trace ML artifacts for compliance; Apply quota management and automatic shutdown; Leverage built-in and custom policies for compliance management; Utilize continuous monitoring with Azure Security Center.

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Features:

• Easy & flexible building interface: Execute your machine learning development through the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio using drag-and-drop components that minimize the code development and straightforward configuration of properties. By being so flexible, the solution also helps build, test ,and generate advanced analytics based on the data.
• Wide range of supported algorithms: Configuration is simple and easy because Microsoft Azure ML offers readily available well-known algorithms. There is also no limit in importing training data, and the solution enables you to fine-tune your data easily, saving money and time and helping you generate more revenue.
• Easy implementation of web services: Simply drag and drop your data sets and algorithms, and link them together to implement web services. It only requires one click to create and publish the web service, which can be used from any device by passing valid credentials.
• Great documentation: Microsoft Azure provides full stacks of documentation, such as tutorials, quick starts, references, and many other resources that help you understand how to easily build, manage, deploy, and access machine learning solutions effectively.

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Benefits:

• It is fully integrated with Python and R SDKs.
• It has an updated drag-and-drop interface, generally known as Azure Machine Learning Designer.
• It supports MLPipelines, where you can build flexible and modular pipelines to automate workflows.
• It supports multiple model formats depending upon the job type.
• It has automated model training and hyperparameter tuning with code-first and no-code options.
• It supports data labeling projects.

Reviews from Real Users:

"The ability to do the templating and be able to transfer it so that I can easily do multiple types of models and data mining is a valuable aspect of this solution. You only have to set up the flows, the templates, and the data once and then you can make modifications and test different segmentations throughout.” - Channing S.l, Owner at Channing Stowell Associates

"The most valuable feature is the knowledge bank, which allows us to ask questions and the AI will automatically pull the pre-prescribed responses.” - Chris P., Tech Lead at a tech services company

"The UI is very user-friendly and the AI is easy to use.” - Mikayil B., CRM Consultant at a computer software company

"The solution is very fast and simple for a data science solution.” - Omar A., Big Data & Cloud Manager at a tech services company