Cassandra vs Couchbase vs ScyllaDB comparison

Read 17 Couchbase reviews

2,043 Views
1,267 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Read 12 ScyllaDB reviews

2,197 Views
1,102 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cassandra

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cassandra, Couchbase, and ScyllaDB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about MongoDB, ScyllaDB, InfluxData and others in NoSQL Databases.

To learn more, read our detailed NoSQL Databases Report (Updated: June 2025).

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NoSQL Databases

June 2025

Helped 856,807 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 10.6%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Couchbase is 9.8%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ScyllaDB is 10.1%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

Himanshu Amodwala

Senior cloud solution architect at Microsoft

Well-equipped to handle a massive influx of data and billions of requests

The use of Cassandra in real-time data analytics has been pivotal for our e-commerce platform. As our platform operates 24/7, providing services to sellers and customers alike, the need for real-time updates is paramount. For instance, when a customer leaves comments or feedback on an image, they anticipate an immediate reflection of these changes on the portal. Similarly, sellers altering product attributes or updating images expect instant visibility of these modifications. Handling large data volumes with Cassandra has been an excellent experience. Despite challenges related to the influx, these were not attributed to Cassandra itself but rather to middle-layer issues. Generally, it demonstrated scalability with workloads, thanks to its horizontal scaling capabilities. We could easily add new nodes to the system as needed, ensuring the platform coped well with increasing loads. The tool's most beneficial feature for scalability is its entire architecture. The absence of a single point of failure or a leader within the ecosystem contributes to its robust scalability. This key aspect influenced our decision to opt for the Cassandra ecosystem. In terms of performance, it demonstrated the ability to handle approximately 1.6 billion requests per day. This was achieved on AWS using EC2 instances, and it was during a period about four to five years ago.

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Ravi_Singh

Manager at Tesco

Supports multiple data models and offers AI capabilities

With some of the operations, we used to face some challenges with scalability. Although it worked pretty well, in some scenarios, we noticed issues where the replications and the sharding were not happening correctly. In recent versions, we also faced some issues in terms of enabling advanced operations like FTS and vectors. Although it works pretty well, in some places, we do face challenges, especially on a heavy scale. I think all issues are being addressed in the latest version of Couchbase. The resources are not that good for Couchbase. The tool's documentation is pretty extensive, but if you go for any kind of courses or tutorials, there are very limited resources available. It also becomes a little bit challenging for new people to get onboard into it. MongoDB and other such open-source database tools perform really well as they're really widely adopted, and they have resources available to get you onboarded pretty quickly. I think that we do face some challenges with Couchbase, but luckily, we have the tool's enterprise version solution, so we get all the support from the product team.

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Uttam Giri

Lead Network Engineer at First Orion

Offers encryption and supports APIs, making it great for distributed systems

The best features of ScyllaDB are how it synchronizes data and its failover system. There's a unique formula to decide the number of nodes you need and the minimum required, which I find helpful. It also offers encryption and supports APIs, making it great for distributed systems and scaling databases across different regions. While it's easy to use, having prior experience helps configure it properly. There are many configurations; if you don't understand them, you might mess up the design. So, understanding your system's needs, like whether it requires more read or write operations, is crucial for setting up the correct configuration.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution's database capabilities are very good."

"Its retrieval is similar to an RDBMS, so our team finds it easy to adapt."

"Cassandra is good. It's better than CouchDB, and we are using it in parallel with CouchDB. Cassandra looks better and is more user-friendly."

"The most valuable features are the counter features and the NoSQL schema. It also has good scalability. You can scale Cassandra to any finite level."

"Cassandra has some features that are more useful for specific use cases where you have time series where you have huge amounts of writes. That should be quick, but not specifically the reads. We needed to have quicker reads and writes and this is why we are using Cassandra right now."

"The most valuable feature of Cassandra is its fast retrieval. Additionally, the solution can handle large amounts of data. It is the quickest application we use."

"Some of the valued features of this solution are it has good performance and failover."

"Our primary use case for the solution is testing."

More Cassandra pros

"Sync Gateway is a great feature that supports the mobile application."

"The main advantages were associated with it being a no SQL database. It helped us send out metrics or rewards to multiple players in our game at a very low latency."

"The principal advantage of Couchbase is that we can have multiple database paradigms in the same product, without deploying multiple databases. We also like that it has lower latency, when compared to its competitor: Cassandra."

"I can input any kind of document into the solution and it is integrated using a dynamic API. This has been the most valuable aspect of using this solution."

"Couchbase was a stable solution for us."

"The product's initial setup phase is easy."

"The most valuable features are the ease of application and the merging of data."

"I have found the views to be very valuable."

More Couchbase pros

"I like how fast it is to query data from the ScyllaDB node!"

"The performance aspects of Scylla are good, as always... A good point about Scylla is that it can be used extensively."

"The database is easy to use, fast, and accessible for applications because the API is straightforward."

"The product's most valuable features are efficiency and reliability."

"The best features of ScyllaDB are how it synchronizes data and its failover system. There's a unique formula to decide the number of nodes you need and the minimum required, which I find helpful. It also offers encryption and supports APIs, making it great for distributed systems and scaling databases across different regions. While it's easy to use, having prior experience helps configure it properly. There are many configurations; if you don't understand them, you might mess up the design. So, understanding your system's needs, like whether it requires more read or write operations, is crucial for setting up the correct configuration."

"ScyllaDB allows fine-tuning of the table structure. Speed is probably the most critical factor because we perform a lot of heavy data ingestion. One of its core features is its ability to handle high volumes and maintain speed when accessing data. Additionally, high availability and partitioning are built-in features of ScyllaDB."

"ScyllaDB is fast and reliable. It has good performance."

"ScyllaDB is very fast, and I can use it for so many things."

More ScyllaDB pros

Cons

"Maybe they can improve their performance in data fetching from a high volume of data sets."

"Batching bulk data can cause performance issues."

"The solution is not easy to use because it is a big database and you have to learn the interface. This is the case though in most of these solutions."

"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."

"Cassandra could be more user-friendly like MongoDB."

"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."

"It can be difficult to analyze what's going on inside of the database relative to other databases. It can also be difficult to troubleshoot sometimes."

"I want Cassandra to update its open-source version more quickly. It's already feature-rich, but I'd appreciate better integration with other NoSQL databases like MariaDB or MongoDB. If I ever need to work with customers or vendors using different NoSQL databases, having native integration in Cassandra would make managing and interacting with their databases much easier."

More Cassandra cons

"It is very difficult to load the backup of the older version to the newer version."

"Overall as a tool, I see room for improvement in Couchbase in certain aspects."

"Needs some capacity planning to deal with too much memory, CPUs and displays."

"What is missing is that they have a new version, Couchbase Mobile three, but they haven't really updated or provided help or documentation about what needs to change to update to the latest mobile version."

"The performance could be quicker and better, especially in the querying process."

"I would like Couchbase to provide more functionality via the UI, as some operations, such as time-based scaling, currently require using the API."

"There are some limitations to the database. The SQL database cannot handle real-time processing for critical IoT scenarios. What we have to do is store our data into the database then code it out, this wastes a lot of time."

"The platform's grouping features need improvement."

More Couchbase cons

"The documentation is not well established for new developers."

"From a sales pitch standpoint, it needs to deliver on promises of better ROI and compaction."

"We faced several challenges while integrating ScyllaDB into our AWS environment. One common issue was that a security port wasn’t opened on one node, preventingdata synchronization across clusters. We noticed the data wasn’t syncing correctly when we saw different record counts in other regions. After investigating, we found that the port was closed in one AWS region. Once we opened the port, the data synchronization across all nodes resumed as expected."

"The documentation of Scylla is an area with shortcomings and needs to be improved."

"ScyllaDB needs to improve its handling of transactions."

"If you don't have the best computing resources, then it's not easy to set up. In such cases, we have to run ScyllaDB in developer mode."

"The product needs to add more features and improve the response time of the support team."

"Data export, along with how we can purchase the data periodically, needs to be improved so that the storage is within control. Then, we could optimize it even better."

More ScyllaDB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's open-source version."

"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."

"I don't have the specific numbers on pricing, but it was fairly priced."

"There are licensing fees that must be paid, but I'm not sure if they are paid monthly or yearly."

"We pay for a license."

"Cassandra is a free open source solution, but there is a commercial version available called DataStax Enterprise."

"I wouldn't say Couchbase offers good value for money."

"It seems very reasonable. It's a lot cheaper than Redis, but we've got an enterprise license. So, it's about normal. It's not outrageous in price as far as we've seen. From Couchbase, there's no additional fee as far as I'm aware, but when you're integrating, there's an additional fee because a lot of times, they don't have an integration stack."

"I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing as it is affordable."

"The price of this solution is better than some of the other competitors."

"It can range between 25,000 to 40,000 Euros per year depending on company requirements."

"The licensing cost of Couchbase is quite expensive compared to other databases."

"We estimate that it's not very expensive, however, the pricing that you can get from the account managers, e.g. the public pricing, could be a bit expensive."

"It is an expensive tool compared to its competitor."

"It's free."

"I believe that there is a yearly licensing cost and that it's expensive."

"It's a bit expensive."

"The paid version of ScyllaDB is not that expensive. The main advantage of the paid version is direct support from the ScyllaDB team, which can resolve issues faster—typically within a day, compared to two to three days with the free version. The paid version also offers better guidance and support, while the free version has good documentation and is more high-level. I’d rate their support team nine out of ten because of the quick responses from their community."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Comms Service Provider

Hospitality Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cassandra?

The use of Cassandra in real-time data analytics has been pivotal for our e-commerce platform. As our platform operat...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cassandra?

We are using Cassandra locally and as open-source.

What needs improvement with Cassandra?

While Cassandra can handle NoSQL, I think there should be more flexibility for whole schema design when data is store...

What needs improvement with Couchbase?

Couchbase needs to improve the consistent reliability of the replication feature. Sometimes, the replications would b...

What is your primary use case for Couchbase?

We used Couchbase ( /products/couchbase-reviews ) as the primary data storage. Since our company was in the gaming in...

What advice do you have for others considering Couchbase?

I would rate Couchbase nine out of ten, given some small hiccups. For example, the replication feature needs to opera...

What do you like most about Scylla?

The performance aspects of Scylla are good, as always... A good point about Scylla is that it can be used extensively.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Scylla?

The enterprise version comes with a cost of about $300,000 per year, however, we did not experience the promised comp...

What needs improvement with Scylla?

From a sales pitch standpoint, it needs to deliver on promises of better ROI and compaction. Additionally, ticketing ...

Neo4j Graph Database vs Cassandra

Comparisons

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

InfluxDB vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

Chroma vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

Compared 4% of the time

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MongoDB vs Couchbase

Compared 31% of the time

Redis vs Couchbase

Compared 12% of the time

Apache HBase vs Couchbase

Compared 4% of the time

Aerospike Database 7 vs Couchbase

Compared 4% of the time

CouchDB vs Couchbase

Compared 3% of the time

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Redis vs ScyllaDB

Compared 14% of the time

Aerospike Database 7 vs ScyllaDB

Compared 11% of the time

InfluxDB vs ScyllaDB

Compared 11% of the time

Apache HBase vs ScyllaDB

Compared 10% of the time

MongoDB vs ScyllaDB

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Cassandra product report

Cassandra

June 2025

Download Couchbase product report

June 2025

Download ScyllaDB product report

May 2025

Overview

Cassandra is a distributed and scalable database management system used for real-time data processing.

It is highly valued for its ability to handle large amounts of data, scalability, high availability, fault tolerance, and flexible data model.

It is commonly used in finance, e-commerce, and social media industries.

Apache

Couchbase is a versatile database solution for healthcare, automation, e-commerce, gaming, caching, and analytics. It supports 920 nodes and 420 clusters, making it scalable and extensible. Its valuable features include multiple database paradigms, low latency, dynamic API integration, Sync Gateway for mobile apps, and a user-friendly interface.

Couchbase has helped organizations with low latency metrics, large user updates, and cost-effective caching. Its built-in data replication and disaster recovery features make it a complete solution for various needs.

ScyllaDB is an open-source, distributed NoSQL wide-column datastore (a highly scalable NoSQL database), known for its compatibility with Apache Cassandra, and for supporting the same protocols as Cassandra (CQL and Thrift) and the same file formats (SSTable). ScyllaDB is designed for high throughput and low latency, making it suitable for data-intensive applications. Its architecture allows it to deliver remarkable performance on a massive scale, utilizing modern multi-core servers to their fullest potential

ScyllaDB utilizes a similar architecture, data format, and query language as Apache Cassandra, providing compatibility while dramatically improving speed and scalability.

The key advantages of ScyllaDB include its rewritten C++ implementation that eliminates Cassandra's expensive Java garbage collection pauses, built-in caching for fast access to frequently used data, and shard-aware drivers for direct routing of requests. This enables it to fully leverage modern multi-core servers for massive parallelism. The community is active and the latest major release, ScyllaDB Enterprise 2023.1.0 LTS, incorporates over 5,000 code commits focused on enhancing capabilities.

ScyllaDB supports wide-column data modeling for fast read performance at scale. It includes integrated monitoring and management tools to track database health and performance. For organizations looking to boost speed and reduce costs for NoSQL workloads, ScyllaDB offers a drop-in replacement for Cassandra that delivers lower latency, higher throughput, and increased scalability with fewer nodes. Its seamless migration path makes switching from Cassandra seamless, requiring minimal code changes.