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Hazelcast Platform vs Varnish Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Hazelcast Platform
Ranking in In-Memory Data Store Services
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Varnish Enterprise
Ranking in In-Memory Data Store Services
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the In-Memory Data Store Services category, the mindshare of Hazelcast Platform is 10.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varnish Enterprise is 4.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
In-Memory Data Store Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Varnish Enterprise4.8%
Hazelcast Platform10.7%
Other84.5%
In-Memory Data Store Services
 

Featured Reviews

PM
Director of Engineering at Visa
Distributed caching has reduced latency and now supports real-time stream processing
I think there are areas where Hazelcast Platform can improve, such as simplifying the cluster topology and sizing rules because they are still somewhat complex for someone new to Hazelcast. Understanding how the cluster topology forms and sizing rules work, such as partition balancing and traffic routing, should be much simpler. If one node has less RAM or a slightly slower CPU, it creates a cluster-wide performance bottleneck, which is critical, especially with transactional systems. Even though Hazelcast Platform has proven to be better, there can still be bottlenecks if the cluster topology and data partitioning are not easily understood. I also think that object handling and streamlined serialization should be prioritized; using standard Java serialization can be extremely slow. Providing native ultra-fast binary serialization out of the box, without requiring developers to write custom adapters, would be a significant improvement. It would be great if there were ready-to-use adapters for streamlined serialization and object handling.
Ankur Vaish - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure L2 Senior Associate & Architect at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Caching has cut backend costs and traffic while configuration language still needs simplification
One of the best features Varnish Enterprise offers is how it maintains the cache, serving it via memory, which is very fast and helpful in our case. We did not want to add extra layers or scale our backend servers too much for cost reasons, and Varnish Enterprise was able to handle those requests well with its memory, as memory I/O is significantly faster than file system I/O. The configuration of Varnish Enterprise was easy because it uses Varnish Configuration Language, which takes some time to get used to, but it is manageable. I particularly appreciated the request routing feature; if a cached request is not found, Varnish Enterprise dynamically routes the request to backend servers. It also shields the backend traffic and IPs, adding an advantage. The challenge we solved with Varnish Enterprise is that it reduced RAM and resource consumption on the backend servers. When we added Varnish Enterprise, we did not see any spike in resource usage, but after removing it, we experienced a significant spike because all requests went to the backend servers, forcing us to scale up. Adding a single Varnish Enterprise server was enough since it maintained the cache efficiently, allowing for less scaling of the backend servers and containers, making it cost-effective. Varnish Enterprise positively impacted our organization by saving us a considerable amount of cost. Without Varnish Enterprise, we would need to scale our containers to around two hundred, but with Varnish Enterprise, we maintained fifty to eighty fewer containers while handling the same traffic, which was definitely advantageous.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There have definitely been a lot more latency reductions and better SLA performance since using Hazelcast Platform, resulting in faster time to market overall for new features and capabilities because the architecture has become simpler."
"Without Varnish Enterprise, we would need to scale our containers to around two hundred, but with Varnish Enterprise, we maintained fifty to eighty fewer containers while handling the same traffic, which was definitely advantageous."
"Varnish Enterprise has positively impacted my organization because the response time is an upgrade, as the response time for HTTP requests is more efficient and quick."
"Varnish Enterprise has positively impacted my organization through performance and efficiency."
"Varnish Enterprise has impacted my organization positively, as we are getting good clients because our websites are very fast and we are achieving good scores on Google Web Vitals."
"Before and after implementation, there was a marked difference in the speed of the systems, and the users noticed it as well."
"The reduction in latency with Varnish Enterprise has affected business outcomes positively because the conversion rate of search for the suggestions shown to users has been significantly higher than for the search pages they land on by manually typing out the whole query."
"Varnish Enterprise is not just a caching layer; it is a performance layer that enables showing real-time data with proper project architecture without issues."
"The tool is really easy to install, very light, and extremely fast."
 

Cons

"If one node has less RAM or a slightly slower CPU, it creates a cluster-wide performance bottleneck, which is critical, especially with transactional systems."
"The monitoring features must be improved."
"I have not seen a return on investment with Varnish Enterprise."
"The configuration can be somewhat rigid as it is quite technical. A newcomer might need to invest a lot of time learning how to set up a Varnish Enterprise layer on any project."
"Varnish Enterprise can be improved, particularly on the security features, as it does not differentiate itself compared to Cloudflare because it only provides the usual TLS termination and load balancing capabilities."
"I think Varnish Enterprise can be improved from a user experience point of view."
"I think Varnish Enterprise can be improved as the prices can be cheaper."
"I think that the usage of Varnish Configuration Language can be improved."
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Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Hazelcast Platform?
I think there are areas where Hazelcast Platform can improve, such as simplifying the cluster topology and sizing rules because they are still somewhat complex for someone new to Hazelcast. Underst...
What is your primary use case for Hazelcast Platform?
My main use case for Hazelcast Platform is to build distributed cache systems across different services that we have. The biggest use is the caching. Additionally, from time to time, we use this fo...
What advice do you have for others considering Hazelcast Platform?
My advice for others looking into using Hazelcast Platform is to study the architecture and data modeling thoroughly. Choosing the right topology for the application or platform is crucial when usi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Varnish Enterprise?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is difficult as some clients do not want to pay so much.
What needs improvement with Varnish Enterprise?
I think Varnish Enterprise can be improved as the prices can be cheaper. Besides the price, I do not think there is anything else that could be better.
What is your primary use case for Varnish Enterprise?
My main use case for Varnish Enterprise is mostly cache. When I say mostly cache, I mean we get directly into Varnish and we edit the rules with VCL files.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Gas, Airbus Defense, Ellie Mae, Gamesys
University of Helsinki, Servcorp, Zype, Com Hem, University of Wuppertal
Find out what your peers are saying about Redis, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle and others in In-Memory Data Store Services. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.