Starting with Databricks 9.1 LTS (Long Term Support), a new run time became available called Databricks Photon, an alternative that was rewritten from the ground up in C++. Several of our teams have now used Photon in production and have been pleased with the performance improvements and corresponding cost savings. Actual improvements and changes in costs will depend upon multiple factors such as data set size and transaction types. We recommend trialing against a realistic workload to gather data for a comparison before making any decision on Photon's use.