Set up Databricks Free Edition

1. Create or use a Free Edition account

Start here: https://www.databricks.com/learn/free-edition

Click Sign up for Free Edition.

If you already have a Free Edition account, you may use it for the hackathon.

Please do not use an enterprise Databricks workspace or paid organizational account for your submission. To keep the challenge fair, teams should build and demo on Free Edition.

2. Work locally when it helps

For app development, we recommend iterating locally when possible, then deploying to Free Edition regularly.

A practical workflow is:

• Build and test the frontend or app code locally.
• Use Free Edition for Databricks-specific pieces such as data access, SQL, model serving, Vector Search, Lakebase, and the deployed Databricks App.
• Deploy early at least once, then continue iterating locally and redeploying as needed.

This helps conserve Free Edition resources and keeps your final demo close to the deployed environment.

3. Collaborate with your team

Each teammate should have their own Free Edition workspace and can use it for exploration, prototyping, notebooks, local app development, and experiments.

As the project becomes more concrete, choose one teammate's Free Edition workspace as the team's final demo workspace. This is where the shared dataset, deployed Databricks App, and final demo state should live.

Suggested team setup:

• Everyone creates or uses their own Free Edition workspace for individual development.
• Keep source code in Git so teammates can share changes across workspaces.
• Pick one final demo workspace early enough to avoid last-minute migration work.
• Invite teammates to the final demo workspace if they need to inspect data, run notebooks, or help deploy the app. Watch a step-by-step video on adding teammates to your Free Edition workspace.
• Decide who owns the final deployment before demo time.