Skip to content

Better Together

PlexiFact
+ Databricks

Databricks is a powerful lakehouse + compute platform. PlexiFact is the fund-data layer. Many of our customers run both - PlexiFact reads and writes Delta Lake, and can delegate compute to Databricks SQL Warehouses or Photon while keeping fund-data orchestration on top. This page is about where each shines, not which one "wins."

  • Domain-native NAV, lineage, multi-currency, recon - sits cleanly on top of the lakehouse
  • Bidirectional Delta Lake - read Delta tables in, push curated outputs back
  • Unity Catalog + Photon friendly - lineage hands off, compute delegates
Databricks role
  • 01
    LAKEHOUSE Delta Lake · Unity Catalog
  • 02
    COMPUTE Photon · Spark · SQL Warehouse
  • 03
    ML / AI MLflow · model serving · feature store
  • 04
    NOTEBOOKS Data science workspaces
  • Compute + ML + lakehouse storage
Lakehouse compute backbone
PlexiFact role
  • 01
    INGEST 24+ domain connectors (Bloomberg, Citco, BNY)
  • 02
    RECONCILE Multi-prime breaks · positions · NAV
  • 03
    GOVERN Lineage · audit · domain-aware controls
  • 04
    DELIVER LP reporting · portfolio aggregation · APIs
  • Fund-data layer on top of (or alongside) the lakehouse
Domain fund-data layer

Where Each Shines

Side by Side

Different layers of the stack, different strengths. Most of our customers use both.

Dimension
PlexiFact
Databricks
Primary role
Fund-data layer + connectors
Lakehouse + Spark compute + ML
Schema
Domain-native (NAV, lineage, recon)
Open table format (Delta) - you define it
Financial connectors
24+ built-in (Bloomberg, Citco, BNY)
Partner connectors + custom ingest
ML / data science
Light analytics layer
MLflow, model serving, notebooks, AutoML
Governance
Built-in for fund data
Unity Catalog + custom domain policies
Reconciliation
Out-of-the-box, domain-aware
Build with PySpark/SQL/dbt
Time-to-first-value
~60 days with embedded team
Fast to spin up, months to build domain layer
Pricing model
Tier-based, predictable
DBU-based (compute) + storage + cloud markup
Works together?
Yes - reads/writes Delta Lake; can use Databricks SQL as compute backend
Yes - PlexiFact can orchestrate Databricks jobs and consume Delta tables

Sweet Spots

Where Each Shines

Neither tool is "better" - they live in different layers. Here is how we think about scope.

D

Databricks is the right answer when

Lakehouse + ML + Spark compute

  • Heavy data science and ML workloads (factor models, alpha research, NLP on filings/news)
  • Petabyte-scale analytics workloads with bursty compute patterns
  • Teams with dedicated platform engineering who model the lakehouse layer in-house
  • Organizations standardizing on a single open-format compute platform across multiple business units
P

PlexiFact is the right answer when

Fund-data layer + connectors

  • Alt asset managers needing a fund-data layer fast (LP reporting, multi-prime recon, portfolio aggregation)
  • Teams without dedicated data engineering capacity to build the fund-data domain layer themselves
  • Firms running Databricks who need a purpose-built domain layer that consumes Delta tables and writes governed outputs back
  • Organizations that want pre-built fund-data connectors and ontology rather than assembling them on top of a lakehouse

Integration

How PlexiFact + Databricks Work Together

Three deployment patterns we see most often. None of them require you to abandon what you already have.

PlexiFact reads Delta Lake

Use Databricks as the lakehouse: PlexiFact ingests Delta tables, applies fund-data schema and lineage, and exposes governed outputs through connectors. Unity Catalog metadata flows through.

PlexiFact writes Delta Lake

Run PlexiFact as the fund-data layer and land curated, reconciled outputs back into Delta tables for ML, BI, or downstream lakehouse consumers in the same platform.

Databricks SQL as the compute backend

For customers standardized on Databricks, PlexiFact can delegate heavy SQL workloads to Databricks SQL Warehouses or Photon while keeping fund-data orchestration, governance, and connectors in PlexiFact.

Already running Databricks?

Good - we will plug into it. Let us scope the fund-data layer that sits on top of your lakehouse, and we will give you an honest read on which deployment pattern fits.