Databricks Community

Carlton · 9 hours ago

Hello Community,

I created a Databricks Free Account. My understanding of the Databricks Free account was that you can train on it for free forever. However, whenever I try to spin up the SQL Serverless I get the message below:

Originally I thought if I wait for period of time my credits would renew and I could start training on the Databricks Free again. However, 3 months later I'm still seeing I'm out of credits, see image.

So, can someone let me know what 'Free' actually means? And I can extend my trial limits please.

Cheers

Carlton

WiliamRosa · 9 hours ago

Hi @Carlton
According to the official Databricks documentation, the Free Edition comes with several limitations under a fair usage policy. For example, it explicitly states: “If you exceed your quota, your workspace’s compute resources will be shut down and unavailable for the rest of the day. Your data and settings will not be deleted.” This means the “out of credits” message does not refer to monetary credits but rather to usage limits on free serverless compute resources, such as SQL warehouses, which are restricted to a 2X-Small size with daily quotas. Once these quotas are consumed, you must wait until they reset or upgrade to a paid plan to continue running workloads.
https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/getting-started/free-edition-limitations

Wiliam Rosa
Data Engineer | Machine Learning Engineer
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/wiliamrosa

Carlton · 7 hours ago

Hi @WiliamRosa thanks for getting in touch.

What you suggested is exactly how I interpreted Free Edition. I haven't actually used Databricks Free for about 3 months. Therefore, can you explain why I'm getting the following message when I attempt to start my SQL Serverless?

Thank you

BS_THE_ANALYST · 7 hours ago

@Carlton , are you sure you're using the Free Edition?

Could you check this in the Top Left hand corner of your UI:
It should say "Free Edition"

I ask this as I'm curious why you're seeing reference to available credits. If you hit a limitation of the free edition, I'd have expected a different error messaged. Then again, the game is the game 😂🤔.

All the best,
BS