Cassandra vs MongoDB vs ScyllaDB comparison

Read 79 MongoDB reviews

4,076 Views
3,191 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Read 12 ScyllaDB reviews

2,327 Views
1,404 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: March 2025).

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NoSQL Databases

March 2025

Helped 849,210 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 April 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 10.8%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MongoDB is 18.9%, down from 25.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ScyllaDB is 10.4%, up 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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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

"I am satisfied with the performance."

"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."

"I am getting much better performance than relational databases."

"Overall, I would rate Cassandra as nine because of its fast writes, which really suit our use cases mostly."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More Cassandra pros

"One of the biggest benefits is the speed and flexibility of the documents, especially when it comes to modifications."

"I found that MongoDB is most valuable for storing school-related queries. It's also user-friendly, and I found no difficulty accessing it. Setting it up is easy too."

"MongoDB is extremely developer-friendly because when you are starting, there is very little time needed upfront in terms of planning."

"The most valuable feature is that you can store unstructured data, which is helpful when you don't know what the best structure should be and you cannot use a relational database because of that."

"We decided to work with MongoDB as its interface is easier to understand and more universal."

"I like the document storage feature. It's pretty simple."

"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."

"We can define security rules at the database level or the cluster level to grant or deny access to particular users."

More MongoDB pros

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

More ScyllaDB pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

"Interface is not user friendly."

"Cassandra can improve by adding more built-in tools. For example, if you want to do some maintenance activities in the cluster, we have to depend on third-party tools. Having these tools build-in would be e benefit."

More Cassandra cons

"People coming from RDBMS should have the flexibility to write queries in SQL that can be converted into JSON queries."

"It isn't easy to recognize entities with MongoDB."

"The transaction could use improvement. From MySQL, for example, you cannot create a transaction if you are reading and writing a document at the same time."

"There should be better integration with other databases."

"Simplifying the aggregation framework would be an improvement."

"More stable indexes would be helpful in a future release. That's been an issue for some time. I don't know if it's been fixed now but we transitioned to it because we needed a search index to be able to search for things and if that goes or starts disappearing, we have to move away from that solution. I don't know if they fixed it, last time I had this issue was three years ago so they might have solved it."

"I think it would be good to have more search options such as an index resource. This will provide more options and resources to do advance searches."

"It could be more stable. It would be better if it were more user-friendly like Oracle, which is very easy. For example, creating an index is simple in Oracle. In MongoDB, it's quite challenging to do that. Performance could be better. It's fast and good, but you cannot put every application that you would like to in MongoDB."

More MongoDB cons

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More ScyllaDB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

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

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

"The solution is open source, so it is free."

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

"MongoDB's pricing is reasonable."

"The product is affordable."

"It is rather expensive."

"It's open-source."

"I believe that MongoDB is free."

More MongoDB pricing and cost advice

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

"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's free."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

University

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

University

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

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 10% of the time

Chroma vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

InfluxDB vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

Accumulo vs Cassandra

Compared 4% of the time

InfluxDB vs MongoDB

Compared 19% of the time

Couchbase vs MongoDB

Compared 12% of the time

Milvus vs MongoDB

Compared 7% 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

InfluxDB vs ScyllaDB

Compared 12% of the time

Redis vs ScyllaDB

Compared 11% of the time

Apache HBase 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

April 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.