Create a workspace
This article is an overview of your options for creating and managing workspaces.
What is a workspace?
A workspace is a Databricks deployment in a cloud service account. It provides a unified environment for working with Databricks assets for a specified set of users.
There are two types of Databricks workspaces available:
- Serverless workspaces: A workspace deployment in your Databricks account that comes pre-configured with serverless compute and default storage to provide a completely serverless experience. You can still connect to your cloud storage from serverless workspaces.
- Classic workspaces: A workspace deployment in your Databricks account that provisions storage and compute resources in your existing cloud account. Serverless compute is still available in classic workspaces.
Choosing a workspace type
The following sections describe which workspace type is best for common use cases. Use these recommendations to help you decide whether to deploy a serverless or a classic workspace.
When to choose serverless workspaces
Serverless workspaces are the best choice for most use cases and the easiest way to get started with operational and consumer use cases, such as Lakebase, Genie, and Databricks Apps.
Serverless workspaces are the best choice for the following use cases:
- Enabling business users to access Databricks One
- Creating AI/BI dashboards
- Creating Databricks Apps
- Performing exploratory analytics using notebooks or SQL warehouses
- Connecting to SaaS providers through Lakehouse Federation (but not Lakeflow Connect)
- Using Genie Spaces for business use cases
- Using AI features such as vector search, model serving, AI functions, and Agent Bricks
- Creating serverless Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines
When to choose classic workspaces
Classic workspaces are the best choice for the following use cases:
- Porting existing legacy Spark code that uses Spark RDDs
- Using Scala or R as your primary coding language
- Streaming data that requires time-based trigger intervals
- Connecting to on-premises systems or private databases directly, through Lakeflow Connect
Workspace creation options
There are a few different methods you can use to create new workspaces: