ask to how to use databricks community version

[Amit110409]

Hi, guys, as I am new to Databricks, I use Databricks free tier. But I want to explore it more and practice more, so. How do we get access to the community version? Because when I go to the community version, it redirects me to the free edition, but there are some issues for DBFS when we upload any file. But if we use any S3 or other service, it is fine. But for practice, how can we use it for free? 

[ilir_nuredini]

Hello @Amit110409 ,

Databricks has announced the free edition version of Databricks. It contains much more capabilities than the community edition.

Regarding DBFS, there is no official update on enabling full access in the Free Edition. Also, DBFS is now considered a legacy approach, so you should use Unity Catalog Volumes for storing and accessing data going forward and also it is recommended approach.

Example upload to UC Volume:

1. Go to the catalog you wanna have the data in, and click create Volume:

2. Give it a name and click create:

3. Then use the "Upload to this volume" button to upload the data:

4. Here it is an example how to read a csv file from Volume:

df = spark.read.csv("/Volumes/main/finance/reports/monthly/may2025.csv", header=True, inferSchema=True)
df.show()

Hope that helps. Best, Ilir