iDBQuery vs Databricks Genie (AI/BI): what's the difference?

Databricks Genie, part of the AI/BI experience, lets users ask questions in natural language over data in the Databricks lakehouse, using Unity Catalog for governance and context. If your organisation runs on Databricks, Genie is a natural, well-governed way to open analytics to more people.

iDBQuery is designed for heterogeneous data rather than a single lakehouse:

• Across everything, one model. iDBQuery connects to Databricks and other warehouses as standard sources, and also to relational databases, MongoDB, Excel, CSV, Sheets, PDFs, folders (with OCR) and REST APIs, so one question can span them all.
• Cited answers. Every figure links back to the exact source rows behind it.
• Deploy in your walls. Cloud, your own VPC, a Desktop app, or fully air-gapped, querying in place, not confined to one platform's environment.
• No modelling project required. iDBQuery's semantic layer helps it understand cryptic schemas without you defining catalogs per source first.

Genie is a great fit when the lakehouse is your centre of gravity and Unity Catalog already models your data. iDBQuery fits when your data is not all in one place, when you need every number cited to its row, or when deployment has to remain inside your own environment.