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

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

"The most valuable features of Cassandra are its scaling capabilities and its non-SQL nature capabilities."

"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."

"Cassandra offers high availability and fault tolerance, making it suitable for large-scale data storage and real-time processing."

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

"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."

"A consistent solution."

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

More Cassandra pros

"The solution does not hold data in tabular format like SQL does but rather clusters data so that it can link on a large scale."

"In our case, it is most important to have redundancy."

"It is easy to set up."

"like its performance and the stability. It's very stable and, performance-wise, it's really great."

"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 geospatial index feature is useful for dealing with latitude and longitude data."

"It is really a pretty easy product to use. It's very reliable, it's proven."

"We've found the product to be scalable."

More MongoDB pros

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

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

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

"The performance and scalability are good, and we hardly see any major issues with ScyllaDB."

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

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

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

"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."

More ScyllaDB pros

Cons

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

"Cassandra is very complex to manage. Sometimes, I need to involve a senior DevOps engineer if we encounter a problem."

"The initial setup of Cassandra can be difficult in the configuration. There might be a need to have assistance. The implementation process can six months for connecting to certain databases."

"Interface is not user friendly."

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

"While Cassandra can handle NoSQL, I think there should be more flexibility for whole schema design when data is stored in wide columns. Additionally, I believe that eventual consistency should be enhanced."

"There were challenges with the query language and the development interface. The query language, in particular, could be improved for better optimization. These challenges were encountered while using the Java SDK."

"The solution is limited to a linear performance."

More Cassandra cons

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

"Data encryption is possible using third-party tools but they should have their own encryption capability built-in to this solution."

"It would help if MongoDB offered a light solution for small projects."

"It should have GUI for managing clusters. MongoDB needs a more powerful GUI to manage clusters and make switchovers. Currently, there is no good, free tool to check the replication to find out if there is a gap."

"It could be much more flexible like SequoiaDB. I would like to see more flexibility in the next release, especially when working with Microsoft Windows. A lot of people struggle with MongoDB because of their Windows versions. But Linux is faultless and mostly runs nicely."

"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 performance could be faster."

"The solution can be a bit tough to set up if you don't have knowledge about how the database works."

More MongoDB cons

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

"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."

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

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

"ScyllaDB needs to improve its handling of transactions."

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

More ScyllaDB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We pay for a license."

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

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

"MongoDB's pricing is reasonable."

"MongoDB is not expensive."

"There are different licenses available to be purchased, such as individual, premium, or enterprise."

"The pricing is favorable if you opt to install MongoDB on an Amazon EC2 instance as you won't have to pay for the extra Atlas services and can instead manage the scaling yourself. This allows for a cost-effective solution and using MongoDB on a small scale, I have been able to utilize it for free."

"We use the open-source version, which is available to use free of charge."

"The product is affordable."

"MongoDB has a free version. You can also buy the enterprise edition, which is cheaper than Oracle."

"MongoDB is an open-source product."

More MongoDB pricing and cost advice

"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 is an expensive tool compared to its competitor."

"It's free."

"It's a bit expensive."

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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

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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

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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.