Cassandra vs MongoDB vs ScyllaDB comparison

Read 79 MongoDB reviews

3,725 Views
2,961 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Read 12 ScyllaDB reviews

2,305 Views
1,394 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cassandra

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Executive Summary

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

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

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

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NoSQL Databases

May 2025

Helped 850,349 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 May 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 10.7%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MongoDB is 17.4%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ScyllaDB is 10.3%, up from 9.9% 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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Uzair Faruqi

Head Of Analytics at Mjunction Services

Transforms data flow with adaptable schema and smooth public cloud deployment

One of our business units uses MongoDB, and we developed an ETL pipeline that extracts data from MongoDB and transfers it into our data warehouse MongoDB is a NoSQL database that is similar to a document database. It offers flexibility in schema adaptation, allowing us to change the schema and…

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ArpitShah

Software Analyst at CLSA

Self-hosting complexity and the way ScyllaDB counts operations can be confusing and may not reflect actual usage

It seems we have better options available. So probably don't go for ScyllaDB. The reason is, first, it's very high. It's not as straightforward as, like, Postgres or ClickHouse to set up. It requires a complex setup. The other problem is what they call. For example, they will say that for up to a million operations, you experience this. But the problem is if they have nine servers, then your one operation is counted as nine operations, not one. So, even though you have one write, they count it as nine. It's like it's just not false premises. You can always host it yourself, but then it's way more complex. The benefits are not substantially more than those of other databases. It's not that it's slow or anything. It's good enough and all. But it's just that ClickHouse or other databases are simpler and faster and probably provide more features. So, I kind of burn out from the database, and that's why I would keep it small.

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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

"Can achieve continuous data without a single downtime because of node to node ring architecture."

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

"We can add almost one million columns to the solution."

"I'd rate the solution ten out of ten."

"The most valuable features of Cassandra are the NoSQL database, high performance, and zero-copy streaming."

"A consistent solution."

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

More Cassandra pros

"The most valuable feature is the geometric information done with GeoJSON."

"MongoDB is cool. There is a difference between relational databases and newer databases like MongoDB. MongoDB is scalable and fast."

"The most valuable features of MongoDB are the variety of translations available and the ability to deploy it on the cloud is useful. The cloud users can access the data, work on the data, and if they want to import or manipulate some data they can."

"The aggregation framework is very powerful when elaborating on data."

"I think that MongoDB isn't too structured, and that's good for our technical team because they are able to search through the database better than if they are using SQL Server."

"The aggregation framework is really good, allowing a developer to build very complex queries."

"MongoDB is simpler to learn and implement than traditional SQL solutions like MySQL."

"MongoDB stores the JSON data, and it's easy for me to understand because I'm a JavaScript Developer."

More MongoDB pros

"Firstly, if I update something, it's most likely to finish within milliseconds."

"It is lightweight, and it requires less infrastructure."

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

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

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

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

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

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

More ScyllaDB pros

Cons

"The secondary index in Cassandra was a bit problematic and could be improved."

"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."

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

"Fine-tuning was a bit of a challenge."

"The solution doesn't have joins between tables so you need other tools for that."

"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."

"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."

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

More Cassandra cons

"From my point of view, they need a totally free IDE to work at high levels."

"The stability could be better."

"I suppose it could be a little more secure."

"I have found the solution difficult to operate as an administrator."

"The MongoDB documentation can be a little complicated sometimes."

"Its security features can be better. Sometimes, my higher authority says that we are not going to use MongoDB because it doesn't provide that much security for the RDBMS or relational data that we use for transactions. Instead of MongoDB, we will use Oracle Database because for a transactional service, you have to rely on RDBMS ACID properties. I would love to work on MongoDB by using my mobile phone. When I am working remotely or traveling and have some instances deployed on my server, I should be able to check through my mobile whether all the data is being pulled. GitHub has a similar feature, where it lets you read from the laptop, and you can also pull and push with your mobile phone. I would request MongoDB to provide such a feature. Basically, I want a mobile version for both iOS and Android versions."

"The solution should more easily integrate with custom code."

"The analytics needs improvement."

More MongoDB cons

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

"ScyllaDB needs to improve its handling of transactions."

"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."

"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 documentation is not well established for new developers."

"It seems we have better options available. So probably don't go for ScyllaDB. The reason is, first, it's very high. It's not as straightforward as, like, Postgres or ClickHouse to set up. It requires a complex setup."

"Some of the regular commands in NoSQL do not work."

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

More ScyllaDB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"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."

"We pay for a license."

"I believe that the licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"You only have to pay for the paid version, not the open-source version."

"There is an annual subscription for the use of this solution."

"I believe that MongoDB is free."

"The product is affordable."

"MongoDB's pricing is not reasonable, but it is not as expensive as the others."

"I currently use the solution's community edition which is free."

"MongoDB is a free solution. We wanted to have high availability and the subscription cost was quite expensive because the basic one is free and then when you want to have some other replications or other features you will need to pay money. Overall the solution is expensive."

More MongoDB pricing and cost advice

"It's free."

"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."

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

"It's a bit expensive."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

University

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

University

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

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 do you like most about MongoDB?

MongoDB's approach to handling data in documents rather than traditional tables has been particularly beneficial.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MongoDB?

We use the free version of MongoDB, so there are no licensing costs.

What needs improvement with MongoDB?

There is room for improvement in integrating MongoDB with agentive AI solutions. While solutions for other databases ...

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 ...

More Cassandra Competitors

Comparisons

Couchbase vs Cassandra

Compared 16% of the time

ClickHouse vs Cassandra

Compared 11% of the time

InfluxDB vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

Chroma vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

Accumulo vs Cassandra

Compared 4% of the time

InfluxDB vs MongoDB

Compared 16% of the time

Couchbase vs MongoDB

Compared 11% of the time

Milvus vs MongoDB

Compared 8% of the time

Qdrant vs MongoDB

Compared 5% of the time

SingleStore vs MongoDB

Compared 3% of the time

More MongoDB Competitors

Couchbase vs ScyllaDB

Compared 17% of the time

Redis vs ScyllaDB

Compared 13% of the time

Apache HBase vs ScyllaDB

Compared 11% of the time

InfluxDB vs ScyllaDB

Compared 11% of the time

CouchDB vs ScyllaDB

Compared 5% of the time

More ScyllaDB Competitors

Product Reports

Download Cassandra product report

Cassandra

May 2025

Download MongoDB product report

April 2025

Download ScyllaDB product report

April 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

MongoDB is a flexible and scalable NoSQL database solution that efficiently handles both structured and unstructured data. It is known for its ease of use, JSON capabilities, and efficient data handling, making it ideal for developer-friendly environments.

MongoDB stands out with features like sharding, geospatial indexing, and its open-source nature. Users find it fast and appreciate its seamless integration into different applications. Despite being powerful, it remains straightforward to set up and use, bolstered by a clustering and aggregation framework that enhances its functionality. While generally appreciated for its cost-effectiveness and broad application compatibility, there is room for improvement in security, enterprise integration, and the creation of more robust training and documentation resources. Enhancing performance and adding support for traditional relational database concepts could also prove beneficial.

What are MongoDB's most important features?

Scalability: Efficiently manages growing data volumes.
Flexibility: Supports structured and unstructured data with ease.
Sharding: Distributes data across multiple servers.
Geospatial Indexing: Enables location-based data handling.
Open-source: Wide community support and customization.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Cost-effectiveness: Reduces overall database management expenses.
Ease of Use: Simplifies database setup and maintenance.
Developer-friendly: Accelerates application development with supportive tools.
Scalable Solutions: Adapts to evolving business requirements.

MongoDB finds widespread application across industries like healthcare, logistics, and telecommunications. It efficiently powers IoT platforms, data analytics, and document management systems. Its schema flexibility and JSON storage capabilities make it ideal for real-time processing and multi-server databases, essential for handling large-scale data volumes in modern applications.

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.