Get started: Free trial & setup

If you’re new to Databricks, you’ve found the place to start. Learn how to set up a free trial and cloud account. For information about more online training resources, see Get free Databricks training.

Start a Databricks free trial on AWS

Note

To create your Databricks account, you need an existing AWS account. If you don’t have an AWS account, you can sign up for an AWS Free Tier account at https://aws.amazon.com/free/.

During the 14-day free trial, all Databricks usage is free, but Databricks uses compute and S3 storage resources in your AWS account.

When your Databricks free trial ends, you receive an email informing you that you are automatically enrolled in the Databricks plan that you selected when you signed up for the trial, but you won’t be billed without your authorization. You can upgrade to a higher tier plan at any time after your trial ends. You can cancel your subscription at any time.

You can sign up for Databricks on AWS either through AWS Marketplace—with Databricks usage (after the free trial) billed through your AWS account—or through Databricks, paying with a credit card.

Sign up through AWS Marketplace

When you sign up for Databricks through AWS Marketplace, your Databricks usage is billed through AWS.

Note

An AWS account can have only one active AWS Marketplace subscription to Databricks.

1. Log in to your AWS account as a user with the Purchaser role.

   Note

   You can also initiate your AWS subscription from the Try Databricks on AWS page on databricks.com. After you fill in the signup form, select Pay with your AWS account to go to AWS and complete the signup process.

2. Go to AWS Marketplace, search for Databricks, and select Databricks Lakehouse Platform.

   You can also follow this direct link.

3. On the initial subscription page, click Continue to Subscribe.

4. On the next page, read the terms and click Subscribe.

5. On the pop-up dialog, click Set Up Your Account.

   A Databricks sign-up page appears.

6. Enter your email address, first name, last name, and company, and click Sign up.

   This email address becomes your Databricks account owner username.

7. When you’ve finished, look for two emails:

   • An email from Amazon confirming your Databricks subscription in AWS Marketplace.

   • An email from Databricks welcoming you and asking you to verify your email address.

8. In the Databricks welcome email, click the link to verify your email address. You are prompted to create your Databricks password.

9. After you create your password, you’re redirected to the Databricks account console, where you can set up your Databricks account and create a workspace.

Sign up through Databricks

If you sign up for the 14-day free trial directly with Databricks, you must provide credit card information, but you won’t be billed during the trial period. Billing won’t start up after your trial without your authorization.

Note

These instructions describe how to sign up from the primary Databricks signup page on databricks.com. There is a slightly different route that starts at the Try Databricks on AWS page on databricks.com. After you fill in the signup form on that page, select Pay by Credit Card to complete the signup process.

1. Navigate to the Try Databricks page.

2. Enter your name, company, email, and title, and click GET STARTED FOR FREE.

3. Select Amazon Web Services as your cloud provider and click Get started.

   !

   The Databricks trial is free, but you must have an AWS account, and Databricks uses compute and storage resources in your AWS account.

   Tip

   You can sign up for an AWS Free Tier account at https://aws.amazon.com/free/.

4. Look for the welcome email and click the link to verify your email address. You are prompted to create your Databricks password.

5. After you create your password, you’re redirected to the Databricks account console, where you can set up your Databricks account and create a workspace.

Set up your account and workspace

Note

The instructions that follow explain how to use a prepackaged AWS Quick Start to configure your account quickly and easily. This is the recommended approach. If you want to set up using a custom configuration, you can use the Databricks account console and AWS user interfaces to create a workspace manually. To learn more about the manual approach, see Create a workspace using the account console.

After you sign up for a Databricks account, use the following instructions:

1. Open the welcome email you received from Databricks after you signed up for an account. Click the link to verify your email address and create your password.

   When you click Submit, you are taken directly to the Databricks account console.

2. Select a Databricks subscription plan.

   

   Databricks recommends the Premium plan, which adds audit logging, role-based access control, and other features that give you more control over security, governance, and more.

   For information about subscription plans and pricing, see the Databricks AWS pricing page.

3. Click Continue to open an informational page that explains what a Databricks workspace is.

4. Click Get started to open an informational page that asks you to confirm that you have:

   • An AWS account.

   • The password that you created for your Databricks account in step 1.

   • A user-friendly name for your workspace, like “ACME data science workspace”.

5. Click Confirm.

6. On the Let’s set up your first workspace page, enter the following:

   • A user-friendly Workspace name.

   • The AWS region you want to host your Databricks workspace in (typically, choose the region closest to your primary work location).

7. If you already have data in S3 buckets that you want to query using Databricks, select the I have data in S3 that I want to query with Databricks option.

   Note

   The hardcoded prefix databricks-verification-<uuid> is used to handle pre-workspace bucket permission validations. You might see a file with this prefix in the bucket if S3 operations fail because Databricks does not have proper permissions.

8. Click Start quickstart to take you to the AWS Quick Start form, which opens in a new tab.

   Keep the current tab open. You will return to it after you are done with the setup in AWS.

9. On the Quick Start form, which is labeled Quick create stack:

   1. Enter the Databricks account password that you created in step 1.

   2. Select the I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names option.

   All other fields are prepopulated. You can rename these resources if you want, but you must adhere to the strict AWS naming rules for each resource or your deployment will fail.

10. Click Create stack to open the databricks-workspace-stack page, where you can see the workspace being created.

    While the workspace is being created, databricks-workspace-stack status shows as CREATE_IN_PROGRESS.

    

    When the workspace creation is complete, the status shows as CREATE_COMPLETE.

    

    If there are any issues, workspace creation automatically rolls back. Go to the Events tab for details. You can consult the Databricks Community forums for common errors and solutions.

11. When the databricks-workspace-stack status shows as CREATE_COMPLETE, go back to your tab with the Databricks account console.

    The Workspaces tab is open, displaying information about your new Databricks workspace.

    

    Note

    You will also receive an email from noreply@databricks.com that includes a link to your new workspace.

12. Click to launch your workspace in a new tab.

    

13. Select your primary use case then click Finish. The appropriate persona-based Databricks environment loads with prompts to help you get started.

Note

If you subscribed to Databricks through AWS Marketplace, Databricks usage takes 24 hours to appear in the AWS Billing & Cloud Management dashboard. Usage appears in the Databricks account console after one hour. To analyze usage, view the Usage dashboard in the account console.

Manage credit card billing

If you signed up for a 14-day free trial paying with a credit card, you can continue to use your Databricks account when the trial is over by adding billing information. You will receive an email to remind you.

1. Log in to the account console as the account owner or an account admin.

2. Click the Settings icon in the sidebar and click the Subscription & Billing tab.

3. Click the Add billing information button.

4. On the Billing page, add your billing information and click Save.

You will be billed monthly until you cancel.

To switch from monthly credit-card billing to invoice or commit billing, contact a Databricks representative.

Manage AWS Marketplace subscription billing

If you signed up for the free trial using AWS Marketplace, charges appear on the AWS Billing & Cloud Management dashboard alongside your other AWS charges. After the free trial period, you are billed only for the resources you use.

Configure workspace and data permissions

Databricks restricts certain activities to workspace admins to ensure that customers are able to securely configure access to data and code. Some Databricks features must be enabled by a workspace admin before users can use them. For common tasks, see Get started with Databricks administration.

If you’re in a Unity Catalog-enabled workspace, you can leverage a number of additional features for security and governance. See What is Unity Catalog?.

If you want your users to use Databricks SQL, a Databricks workspace admin must perform some configurations tasks. See Databricks SQL administration.

Note

When you create a Databricks workspace, you are granted the workspace admin privilege.