Originally, Databricks was a Notebook interface for using Spark without having to worry with the infrastructure for distributed computing. All you had to do was provide the desired cluster size, and Databricks took care of the rest. Before distributed computing became the norm, this was really big.
It's grown a lot since then (though I'm not sure in what order), especially to produce a front-end SQL interface like to that (which, incidentally, runs Spark underneath). Since your files are saved as files rather than tables, you can now treat Databricks like a database or data warehouse thanks to the virtual data warehouse interface that they have designed. However, once Delta Lake was revealed, your files became tables and could be utilized outside of Databricks in other contexts. Additionally, Databricks Workflows, which are integrated directly into Databricks, allow you to organize your Databricks work.Unity Catalogue in Databricks, which allows Databricks to manage and abstract your data access through a single lens, thereby acting as a stand-alone data platform.
