topic Re: Databricks Free Edition serverless in Machine Learning

Databricks Free Edition serverless

rc2 — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 19:51:53 GMT

I am using the databricks free edition and want to learn how to use ML projects in databricks. However, when I try to connect to serverless, it does not allow me to do so. The only option I have is SOL compute. Is there a way to connect to serverless compute?

Re: Databricks Free Edition serverless

BS_THE_ANALYST — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 20:16:44 GMT

I just imported the following ML notebook (getting started example): https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/notebooks/source/mlflow/mlflow-classic-ml-e2e-mlflow-3.html into my Databricks Free Edition and it seems to work.

On the top right hand corner of the link I sent, there's an "Import Notebook" button. I copied that link, opened up a notebook in Databricks, clicked on "File", within the notebook, and then imported via the URL.

Serverless SQL Warehouse is the only one available, yes. Still seems compatible for some ML? (At least in this case). I do think there will be some restrictions for some ML functionality. Would be interested to see what they are. Please share what you're facing.

Let me know if it works for you!

All the best,
BS

Re: Databricks Free Edition serverless

BS_THE_ANALYST — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 20:59:55 GMT

@rc2 apologies, left you hanging on the last post. Was traveling back from the library.

I imported this notebook from this resource: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/mlflow/end-to-end-example If you look at the navigation bar on the left hand side of the website, you'll see there's a few out of the box examples you can just import into your environment.

As I mentioned before, I tried this one: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/notebooks/source/mlflow/mlflow-classic-ml-e2e-mlflow-3.html and it's worked perfectly fine in my databricks free environment. I'm not too familiar with all the ML components in Databricks but it's working. All it required was for me to create a Catalog called "main". I didn't want to change all the catalog names in the paths that get referenced haha!

Definitely a really cool resource that I've linked though. I'll be learning ML by examples through that. For what it's worth, below is a picture of the ML Notebook working in my environment:

All the best,
BS