Drizzle ORM
Drizzle's v1.0 release candidates land a JIT mapper rework, new codecs, and a breaking casing API
Comparison · Infra & APIs
Databricks vs Depot
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Databricks and Depot — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Databricks vs Depot: at a glance
| Feature | Databricks | Depot |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Infra & APIs, Analytics | Infra & APIs |
| Velocity score | 5.0 | 7.5 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 1 |
| Top themes | data-platform, spark-4, databricks-runtime, jdk-21 | ci-cd, container-builds, agent-compute, sandboxes |
| Last editorial update | 1mo ago | 5d ago |
| Website | Visit → | — |
What is Databricks?
Databricks lands DBR 18.2 GA on Spark 4.1; the 18.x line is the active story, older LTS pages are mostly doc refreshes.
The substantive shipping event in the window is Databricks Runtime 18.2 GA on May 4, the latest minor in a fast 18.x cadence on Spark 4.1.0 (18.0 in January, 18.1 in March, 18.2 Beta on April 8, GA on May 4). The rest of the recent feed is an April 13 documentation refresh that updated release notes for older LTS versions — 14.3, 15.4, 16.4, 17.3, 13.3 — without new shipping behind them.
What is Depot?
Depot turns its build-acceleration compute into a metered backend for AI agents.
Depot is shipping fast across two fronts: hardening its CI platform and opening its compute to AI workloads. Recent CI work includes native step retries, durable cache disks, and a generally available API and CLI with full dashboard parity. On the AI front it added SOCI v2 to cut startup time for large CUDA and PyTorch images and launched a Sandbox SDK to run untrusted or agent-generated code in ephemeral, billed sandboxes.
Databricks vs Depot: editorial side-by-side
Databricks
5.0INFRA · APISANALYTICS
Databricks lands DBR 18.2 GA on Spark 4.1; the 18.x line is the active story, older LTS pages are mostly doc refreshes.
◆ Current state
The substantive shipping event in the window is Databricks Runtime 18.2 GA on May 4, the latest minor in a fast 18.x cadence on Spark 4.1.0 (18.0 in January, 18.1 in March, 18.2 Beta on April 8, GA on May 4). The rest of the recent feed is an April 13 documentation refresh that updated release notes for older LTS versions — 14.3, 15.4, 16.4, 17.3, 13.3 — without new shipping behind them.
◆ Where it's heading
Databricks is pushing Spark 4.1 hard through the runtime line: JDK 21 default in 18.x, breaking changes around NULL preservation and partition columns, aggressive deprecation of older behaviors (input_file_name removal, AWS SDK v1 shading). The 18.x cadence is roughly one minor every six weeks, and 16.4 LTS is acting as the bridge for customers needing to migrate Scala 2.12 code to 2.13 before they can move to 17 or 18.
◆ Prediction
Expect an 18.x LTS designation later in 2026 once the line stabilizes, with continued behavioral hardening and more shaded dependency cleanup. Doc refreshes for older LTS versions — particularly 13.3 LTS, which is close to its August 2026 end-of-support — will likely keep landing as Databricks pushes customers up the runtime stack.
Depot
7.5INFRA · APIS
Depot turns its build-acceleration compute into a metered backend for AI agents.
◆ Current state
Depot is shipping fast across two fronts: hardening its CI platform and opening its compute to AI workloads. Recent CI work includes native step retries, durable cache disks, and a generally available API and CLI with full dashboard parity. On the AI front it added SOCI v2 to cut startup time for large CUDA and PyTorch images and launched a Sandbox SDK to run untrusted or agent-generated code in ephemeral, billed sandboxes.
◆ Where it's heading
Depot is extending from build and CI acceleration toward being a general compute backend for agents. The Sandbox SDK, the agent-friendly GA API, and ML-image startup optimizations point the same way: sell fast, isolated, metered compute that AI tools and pipelines can drive programmatically. The CI improvements keep the core product sticky while the platform broadens.
◆ Prediction
Expect the Sandbox SDK to move toward general availability with more language and filesystem surface, and continued convergence of CI and sandbox compute under one metered, API-first platform.
Alternatives to Databricks and Depot
Other Infra & APIs products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Databricks or Depot.
Warp
Warp drops the terminal framing to bet on cloud software factories and agent orchestration
Unleash
Unleash leans hard into AI-agent governance and self-hosting as its crawled feed fills with thought-leadership.
GitHub
GitHub spends the week hardening enterprise governance and supply-chain security.
Resend
Resend keeps widening from a raw email API into agent-native tooling and audience management.
Daytona
Very high-cadence sandbox infra building the primitives agents need to run code
See all Databricks alternatives → · See all Depot alternatives →
Recent activity from Databricks and Depot
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8d agoDepotSOCI v2 support for Depot container builds
- 9d agoDepotSandbox SDK is now available in private beta ⚡
- 15d agoDepotNative step retries in Depot CI
- 17d agoDepotDurable cache disks for Depot CI jobs are now available in beta
- 23d agoDepotDepot CI API and CLI are now generally available
- 24d agoDepotSSH into Depot CI sandboxes now uses exec.depot.dev
- 1mo agoDatabricksDatabricks Runtime 18.2 (released May 4, 2026)
- 2mo agoDatabricksDBR 18.0 documentation refresh
- 2mo agoDatabricksDatabricks Runtime 15.4 LTS Databricks Runtime 15.4 LTS for Machine Learning 3.5.0Aug 19, 2024Aug 19, 2027
- 2mo agoDatabricksDatabricks Runtime 13.3 LTS Databricks Runtime 13.3 LTS for Machine Learning 3.4.1Aug 22, 2023Aug 22, 2026
- 2mo agoDatabricksDatabricks Runtime 17.3 LTS Databricks Runtime 17.3 LTS for Machine Learning 4.0.0Oct 22, 2025Oct 22, 2028
- 2mo agoDatabricksDatabricks Runtime 18.2 (Beta) Databricks Runtime 18.2 for Machine Learning (Beta) 4.1.0Apr 8, 2026Oct 8, 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Databricks and Depot?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Depot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Databricks better than Depot?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Depot is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Databricks?
Top Databricks alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Databricks alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/databricks for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Depot?
Top Depot alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Depot alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/depot for the full list with editorial commentary on each.