Databricks Data Engineer Associate vs AWS DEA-C01

Take the Databricks Data Engineer Associate if your team builds pipelines on Databricks, and AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) if it builds them with AWS services such as Glue, Kinesis, Redshift and Athena. The Databricks exam tests one platform in depth and works on any cloud. The AWS exam tests whether you can pick and run the right AWS service for each part of a pipeline.

Which one is "better" depends almost entirely on which platform your current or next employer uses. This guide lays out both exams with the same facts in the same order, shows where they overlap and where they don't, and gives a recommendation for each situation, plus what comes next and what each costs. Every exam fact was checked on Databricks' and AWS's own certification pages and exam guides on October 21, 2026.

Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

Status: live. The current exam guide covers the version of May 4, 2026.
Who it's for: people doing foundational data engineering on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.
Recommended experience: Databricks' training course plus six months of hands-on Databricks work, though nothing is required.
Format: 45 scored multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes, as of October 2026. The exam may include unscored items, with extra time built in for them.
Passing score: not published. Databricks says it sets the score statistically and that it can change.
Price: 200 USD plus local taxes. No rupee price is listed.
Delivery: online with a remote proctor (through Kryterion) or at a test centre.
Languages: English, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Korean.
Validity: two years. You renew by passing the current exam again or a shorter renewal exam.
Domains: the Databricks platform (6%), data ingestion and loading (21%), data transformation and modelling (22%), working with Lakeflow Jobs (16%), CI/CD (10%), troubleshooting, monitoring and optimisation (10%), and governance and security (15%).

The May 2026 guide uses Databricks' current product names: Lakeflow Jobs (formerly Workflows), Lakeflow Connect, Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines, Auto Loader, Unity Catalog, Git folders (formerly Repos) and Declarative Automation Bundles (formerly Databricks Asset Bundles). Delta Live Tables isn't named at all. If your course or practice set still uses the old names, it was written for an earlier version.

The exam is cloud-neutral. Its objectives name ADLS, S3 and Google Cloud Storage alike, because Databricks runs on all three clouds.

AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01)

Status: live, with no new version or retirement announced as of October 2026.
Who it's for: people with two to three years in data engineering and one to two years hands-on with AWS, according to AWS's exam guide.
Recommended experience: as above; no formal prerequisite.
Format: 65 questions (50 scored, 15 unscored) in 130 minutes, multiple choice and multiple response, as of October 2026.
Passing score: 720 on a scale of 100 to 1,000, with no penalty for guessing.
Price: 150 USD. In India, AWS lists INR 12,829.50 for vouchers bought through the Pearson Mindhub store.
Delivery: Pearson VUE test centre or online with a remote proctor.
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.
Validity: three years. You renew by passing the latest version.
Domains: data ingestion and transformation (34%), data store management (26%), data operations and support (22%), and data security and governance (18%).

DEA-C01 is about choosing between AWS services and operating them. It explicitly leaves out language-specific syntax and machine learning training, so you're tested on what to use and how to configure it, not on writing Spark code. A typical question asks how to stop a nightly Glue job re-reading old files, as in this practice question on Glue job bookmarks, or how to coordinate two pipeline steps reliably, as in this practice question on Step Functions and Glue. The guide to AWS Glue covers the service the exam leans on most.

How the two exams differ

Scope: Databricks tests one platform in depth: Spark, Delta tables, Lakeflow and Unity Catalog. AWS tests a set of services (Glue, Kinesis, Redshift, Athena, Lake Formation, DynamoDB and others) and when to use each.
Cloud: Databricks is cloud-neutral and works on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. AWS is AWS only.
Questions: Databricks is 45 scored questions in 90 minutes. AWS is 65 questions (50 scored) in 130 minutes.
Passing score: Databricks doesn't publish one. AWS publishes 720 out of 1,000.
Price (as of October 2026): Databricks costs 200 USD. AWS costs 150 USD.
Validity: Databricks lasts two years. AWS lasts three.
Code: Databricks expects you to read and reason about SQL and PySpark. AWS excludes language-specific syntax.
Official practice exam: Databricks says it doesn't offer one. AWS sells one through Skill Builder and gives away a free 20-question practice set.

Where they overlap

The two exams cover the same ideas from different angles, so studying for one helps with the other:

Incremental ingestion. Databricks has Auto Loader. AWS has Glue job bookmarks. Both are ways to process only new files.
Table formats. Databricks is built on Delta tables. On AWS, Apache Iceberg tables play a similar role, and this practice question on Iceberg row-level deletes shows why the table format matters for privacy requests.
Governance. Databricks uses Unity Catalog. AWS uses Lake Formation, including tag-based access, as in this practice question on LF-Tags at scale.
File layout and performance. Databricks' guide has a troubleshooting and optimisation domain, and AWS tests partitioning and file sizes. This practice question on compacting small files for Athena is a typical AWS example.

Which one should you take

Your team runs Databricks (on any cloud): take the Databricks Data Engineer Associate. It matches your daily work on that platform.
Your team builds on AWS services, without Databricks: take DEA-C01. It covers the services you use and costs less.
Your company runs Databricks on AWS: both are useful. Start with the one closer to your daily work, then add the other.
You're job hunting and don't know the platform yet: look at the job ads you're applying to. In Google Trends over the past 90 days, "databricks certified data engineer associate" was a rising query (+170%) among searches for "aws data engineer associate", so you're not the only one weighing the two.
You're new to data engineering: AWS's guide asks for two to three years of experience and Databricks' for six months on its platform. Get some hands-on time first, whichever you choose.

What comes next

On the Databricks side, the next step is the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional. A new version went live on October 9, 2026: 60 scored questions in 120 minutes, 200 USD, valid two years, with a year of hands-on data engineering recommended. Writing code to process data is its largest domain (23%). Databricks' web page still showed the old weights on October 21, so use the exam guide.

AWS currently has no professional-level data engineering exam. AWS's DEA-C01 page suggests Security – Specialty as one next step, and the other options are set out in the AWS certification roadmap.

Renewing each certification

The two vendors handle renewal differently, and over five years the difference adds up.

Databricks: the Data Engineer Associate is valid for two years. To renew, you pass either the current version of the exam or a shorter renewal exam of 25 questions. As of October 2026, Databricks prices the renewal exam at 200 USD, the same as the full exam, so the saving is time, not money. The renewal exam has its own guide, dated June 2026.
AWS: DEA-C01 is valid for three years. You renew by passing the latest version of the exam, and AWS's 50% voucher for certified people applies to recertification. AWS also lists a paid Skill Builder route that extends associate certifications, including this one, by a year.

If you hold both, plan the renewals separately: the Databricks one comes round a year sooner. The product names also change quickly on the Databricks side. The May 2026 guide uses new names for several features, so read the current exam guide before each renewal rather than relying on what you studied two years earlier.

Cost and preparation

As of October 2026, the Databricks Associate costs 200 USD plus tax and DEA-C01 costs 150 USD (INR 12,829.50 through Mindhub). Both charge the full fee for every retake. On Databricks you wait 14 days between attempts, with no limit on attempts. Over five years, Databricks' two-year validity means more renewals than AWS's three years.

Free preparation differs:

Databricks: Databricks Free Edition is a free, size-capped workspace for personal learning, and Databricks Academy has free self-paced training. The exam guide lists recommended courses. There's no official practice exam.
AWS: Skill Builder's free Official Practice Question Set (20 questions) and a two-hour Exam Prep course. The full Official Practice Exam needs a subscription, from 29 USD a month.

This site has no Databricks data engineering practice test. For DEA-C01, the AWS Data Engineer – Associate practice tests have 100 questions plus a full-length mock exam, and the DEA-C01 question list lets you jump to Kinesis, Redshift or Lake Formation when you need to drill one area. Another favourite topic is streaming, as in this practice question on a hot Kinesis shard.

Frequently asked questions

Is Databricks or AWS Data Engineer Associate better?

Neither is better in general. Databricks is better if you work on Databricks, and AWS is better if you build pipelines from AWS services. If your company runs Databricks on AWS, both are worth having.

Which is harder, Databricks or AWS Data Engineer Associate?

They are hard in different ways. AWS is longer (130 minutes, 65 questions) and covers many services. Databricks is shorter but expects you to read SQL and PySpark, and it doesn't publish a passing score or offer an official practice exam.

How much does the Databricks Data Engineer Associate cost?

200 USD plus local taxes as of October 2026. Databricks lists no rupee price. AWS DEA-C01 costs 150 USD, or INR 12,829.50 through the Pearson Mindhub store.

How long are the certifications valid?

Databricks Data Engineer Associate is valid for two years. AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate is valid for three.

Should I take both?

If you work with Databricks on AWS, yes, eventually. Start with the one that matches most of your daily work, then add the other. The overlap (ingestion, table formats, governance) makes the second one quicker to prepare for.

Does the Databricks exam still cover Delta Live Tables?

Not by that name. The May 2026 exam guide uses Lakeflow Spark Declarative Pipelines and Lakeflow Jobs (formerly Workflows), and doesn't name Delta Live Tables.