Alternatives · Figures checked September 2026
Databricks Photon alternatives (2026)
ETL Compare staff · Published 29 September 2026
In brief
On our scores, the highest-ranked alternatives to Databricks Photon (3.4) are Apache Gluten (3.9) and DataFusion Comet (3.8). Five of the six alternatives have a higher ETL fit score than Databricks Photon and one has a lower one; the list below shows where each scores higher or lower than Databricks Photon.
Why do teams look for alternatives to Databricks Photon?
These points come from Databricks Photon's own public pages and the facts on our review, as of September 2026. They are reasons to compare, not complaints we collected.
- Photon runs only inside Databricks (on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud), so it cannot follow a job to another platform.
- Photon compute consumes DBUs at different rates, so the net cost has to be modelled per job.
- Databricks documents that Photon does not support UDFs, RDD APIs or stateful streaming, and does not help queries that run in under two seconds.
Which alternatives score highest?
Alternative 1
Apache Gluten
3.9 / 5
ETL fit score (editorial assessment, 0-5)Rank 1 of 7
Highest ETL fit score: open-source native engine for self-managed Spark
- Scores higher than Databricks Photon on: Adoption effort, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence
- Databricks Photon scores higher on: tuning and operating burden and maturity and community
- Tied on: stage coverage
- Runs on: Self-managed Spark 3.4 to 4.1 on Linux, on any platform where you control Spark config
- Published price: No license fee
Alternative 2
DataFusion Comet
3.8 / 5
ETL fit score (editorial assessment, 0-5)Rank 2 of 7
Best for teams on recent Spark 4.x releases
- Scores higher than Databricks Photon on: Adoption effort, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence
- Databricks Photon scores higher on: stage coverage, tuning and operating burden and maturity and community
- Runs on: Self-managed Spark 3.5, 4.0 and 4.1 (3.4 deprecated) on Linux
- Published price: No license fee
Alternative 3
RAPIDS Accelerator
3.7 / 5
ETL fit score (editorial assessment, 0-5)Rank 3 of 7
Best for teams that already run GPU capacity
- Scores higher than Databricks Photon on: Adoption effort, stage coverage, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence
- Databricks Photon scores higher on: tuning and operating burden
- Tied on: maturity and community
- Runs on: Amazon EMR, Databricks, Dataproc, GKE, Azure Synapse, Kubernetes, on-premises, OCI
- Published price: No plugin fee; GPU instance pricing applies
Alternative 4
DualBird
3.6 / 5
ETL fit score (editorial assessment, 0-5)Rank 4 of 7
Best for spill- and shuffle-heavy ETL on EMR and EKS
- Scores higher than Databricks Photon on: Adoption effort, stage coverage and platform and instance portability
- Databricks Photon scores higher on: tuning and operating burden, cost model transparency, published evidence and maturity and community
- Runs on: Apache Spark, Amazon EMR and Amazon EKS, on AWS
- Published price: Not published; contact DualBird
Alternative 5
Apache Auron
3.5 / 5
ETL fit score (editorial assessment, 0-5)Rank 5 of 7
Open-source option with its own shuffle and memory layer
- Scores higher than Databricks Photon on: Adoption effort, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence
- Databricks Photon scores higher on: tuning and operating burden and maturity and community
- Tied on: stage coverage
- Runs on: Self-managed Spark on JDK 8, 11, 17 or 21
- Published price: No license fee
Alternative 6
Flarion
3.1 / 5
ETL fit score (editorial assessment, 0-5)Rank 7 of 7
Commercial plugin with a broad managed-platform list
- Scores higher than Databricks Photon on: Adoption effort and platform and instance portability
- Databricks Photon scores higher on: stage coverage, tuning and operating burden, cost model transparency, published evidence and maturity and community
- Runs on: Databricks, AWS EMR, GCP Dataproc, Azure HDInsight, on-premises
- Published price: Not on homepage; listed on AWS Marketplace
| Alternative | ETL fit score | Scores higher than Databricks Photon on | Also documented for Databricks Photon's platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Gluten | 3.9 | Adoption effort, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence | None documented |
| DataFusion Comet | 3.8 | Adoption effort, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence | None documented |
| RAPIDS Accelerator | 3.7 | Adoption effort, stage coverage, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence | Databricks |
| DualBird | 3.6 | Adoption effort, stage coverage and platform and instance portability | None documented |
| Apache Auron | 3.5 | Adoption effort, platform and instance portability, cost model transparency and published evidence | None documented |
| Flarion | 3.1 | Adoption effort and platform and instance portability | Databricks |
When should you stay with Databricks Photon?
Stay with Photon if your jobs already run on Databricks. It is one setting (on by default on serverless), managed by Databricks inside its runtime, with no plugin for your team to install or version. Photon ranks 6th of 7 on our weights (3.4), which count portability against it because it only runs on Databricks; for a team that is staying on Databricks, that criterion matters less. If you want a second option without leaving Databricks, the alternatives documented for Databricks are shown in the table above.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Databricks Photon?
On our published weights, Apache Gluten (3.9), followed by DataFusion Comet (3.8). The best fit for you depends on your platform and your slowest stage; use the calculator to apply your own weights.
Is there a free alternative to Databricks Photon?
Yes. Apache Gluten, DataFusion Comet, RAPIDS Accelerator and Apache Auron are released under the Apache License 2.0 with no license fee. Free to license is not free to run: you still pay for compute, and for the engineering time to tune and support them.
Do I have to change platforms to switch from Databricks Photon?
Not necessarily. On the pages we reviewed, RAPIDS Accelerator and Flarion are documented for Databricks, as Databricks Photon is. Open-source plugins without a guide for a platform can often be self-installed where you control Spark configuration.