Our take
Pick Databricks if students / hobbyists who will stay on Free Edition at $0 (serverless, quota-limited) while they open a first notebook table, then pay-as-you-go DBUs on AWS / Azure / GCP when a production warehouse is required. Pick MotherDuck if solo analysts who will stay on Lite $0 (10 GB + 10 Pulse hours), then buy Business at $250/org/month plus usage when they need Standard+ instances, Flights at scale, and
Best for
Databricks A query table you start at a public $
MotherDuck Cloud DuckDB metered in CU-hours and GB
Free plan
Databricks $0 · replaced Community Edition (retired 2025). Serverless-only, quota-limited. SQL editor, notebooks, dashboards, Genie, Lakeflow. Personal learning / prototyping
MotherDuck $0 · no card. Up to 3 internal users and 2 service accounts. 10 GB storage and 10 Pulse hours / month included. Pulse instances only. Preset RBAC. Community support. 1-day snapshots. Lite without a card includes 30 minutes/day of F4 Flights
Lowest paid
Databricks Not published by the vendor
MotherDuck Storage $0.04/mo
Next step up
Databricks
MotherDuck Flights $0.15/hour
Coding agent
Databricks
MotherDuck Flights
Runs where
Databricks Hosted
MotherDuck
Watch out
Databricks Free Edition is quota-limited and serverless-only
MotherDuck Lite is Pulse-only
Last checked
Databricks 2026-10-23 · databricks.com/product/pricing
MotherDuck 2026-10-22 · motherduck.com/pricing
students / hobbyists who will stay on Free Edition at $0 (serverless, quota-limited) while they open a first notebook table, then pay-as-you-go DBUs on AWS / Azure / GCP when a production warehouse is required.
Read the Databricks pagesolo analysts who will stay on Lite $0 (10 GB + 10 Pulse hours), then buy Business at $250/org/month plus usage when they need Standard+ instances, Flights at scale, and a 99.9% SLA.
Read the MotherDuck page
