Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Databricks
| Feature | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Databricks |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $0/mo | Free / from $0.07/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.5 / 5 | 4.5 / 5 |
| Best For | enterprises, startups, large-scale-applications, machine-learning-teams | data-engineering-teams, ml-teams, enterprises, large-scale-analytics |
| Founded | 2006 | 2013 |
| Compute Ec2 | ✓ | ✗ |
| Storage S3 | ✓ | ✗ |
| Serverless Lambda | ✓ | ✗ |
| Databases Rds | ✓ | ✗ |
| Machine Learning | ✓ | ✓ |
| Containers Ecs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Cdn Cloudfront | ✓ | ✗ |
| Data Lakehouse | ✗ | ✓ |
| Sql Analytics | ✗ | ✓ |
| Real Time Streaming | ✗ | ✓ |
| Data Governance | ✗ | ✓ |
| Notebooks | ✗ | ✓ |
| Delta Lake | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Pros
- Most extensive service catalog of any cloud provider
- Global infrastructure with 30+ regions worldwide
- 12-month free tier covering many services
- Mature enterprise tooling and compliance certifications
✗ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cons
- Complex pricing that is hard to predict
- Steep learning curve with overwhelming service count
- Console UI feels dated compared to competitors
✓ Databricks Pros
- Unified platform for data engineering, science, and analytics
- Delta Lake provides ACID transactions on data lakes
- Excellent ML/AI capabilities with MLflow integration
- Community Edition is free for learning
✗ Databricks Cons
- Complex pricing with DBU credits
- Requires data engineering expertise to configure
- Vendor lock-in once deeply integrated
The Verdict
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is built for enterprises and startups, with a focus on compute-ec2 and storage-s3. Databricks targets data engineering teams and ml teams and leads with data-lakehouse and sql-analytics.
Both tools come in at similar price points ($0/mo for Amazon Web Services (AWS), $0.07/mo for Databricks), so pricing won't make the decision for you.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Both tools are a solid fit for enterprises — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.