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Cassandra vs Vertica 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

Cassandra
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (4th), Vector Databases (14th)
Vertica
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (5th), Cloud Data Warehouse (10th)
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user1272297 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 19, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Himanshu Amodwala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
T Venkatesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Processes query faster through multiple systems simultaneously, but it could support different data types
We use the solution for various tasks, including preparing data marts and generating offers. It helps extract data based on rules from the policy team and provides insights to enhance business operations. We also analyze transactions to target customers and improve business performance The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'd rate the solution ten out of ten."
"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."
"Since I haven't had years of experience with it, it's still new to me. One valuable feature is its distribution, so I can run it partly in the cloud and part on-prem. That's a feature I'd like to use but haven't yet because we're trying to move to Azure. I don't know if or when that will happen. Ideally, we'd have it distributed over the cloud and on-prem simultaneously, so if something happens to our on-prem, we can keep going in the cloud, like a pay-as-you-go model with Azure."
"The most valuable features of Cassandra are the NoSQL database, high performance, and zero-copy streaming."
"The technical evaluation is very good."
"The solution's database capabilities are very good."
"The time series data was one of the best features along with auto publishing."
"Our primary use case for the solution is testing."
"The feature I like best is performance. We use Red Tool and Red Job for the data warehouse and reporting. It's perfect. Performance is good, and it can return ad hoc queries very quickly. Of course, it's a cluster, so it's easy to scale."
"Partition and join back to node are easy and simple for DBAs."
"Any novice user can tune vertical queries with minimal training (or no training at all)."
"For me, It's performance, scalability, low cost, and it's integrated into enterprise and big data environments."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"The Vertica architecture means it can process/ingest data in parallel to reporting and analyzing because of its in-memory Write-Optimized Storage sitting alongside the analytics optimized Read-Optimized Storage."
"We are also opening new areas of business and potential new revenue streams using Vertica's analytic functions, most notably geospatial, where we are able to run billions of comparisons of lat/long point locations against polygon and point/radius locations in seconds. ​"
"Initiate on one node, and the RPM propagates automatically to all other nodes. ​"
 

Cons

"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."
"Maybe they can improve their performance in data fetching from a high volume of data sets."
"The disc space is lacking. You need to free it up as you are working."
"Fine-tuning was a bit of a challenge."
"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."
"Cassandra is very complex to manage. Sometimes, I need to involve a senior DevOps engineer if we encounter a problem."
"Doesn't support a solution that can give aggregation."
"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."
"Some of our small to medium-sized customers would like to see containerization and flexibility from the deployment standpoint."
"The documentation of Vertica is an area with shortcomings where improvements are required."
"In my opinion, Vertica's documentation could be improved. Currently, there is not enough documentation available to gain a comprehensive understanding of the platform."
"We are looking for a cheaper deployment for the solution. Although we did a lot of benchmarks, like Redshift. We tried Redshift, it didn't work. It didn't work out for us as well."
"The integration of this solution with ODI could be improved."
"They could improve the integration and some of the features in the cloud version."
"Monitoring tools need to be lightweight. They should not take up heavy resources of the main server."
"Support is an area where it could get better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for a license."
"I don't have the specific numbers on pricing, but it was fairly priced."
"Cassandra is a free open source solution, but there is a commercial version available called DataStax Enterprise."
"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."
"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."
"I am aware that we have licensed it, but I have no knowledge of its cost."
"The solution is free and we pay for the storage."
"Vertica is an expensive tool."
"The pricing and licensing depend on the size of your environment and the zone where you want to implement."
"The solution is relatively cost-effective."
"Start with license per 1TB. Starting from hundreds of TB there is unlimited licensing to be considered. Move historical data to HDFS/S3 which are significantly cheaper or even free."
"It's free up to three nodes and 1TB, and then get in contact with their sales guys."
"It's an expensive product"
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Answers from the Community

it_user1272297 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 19, 2020
Apr 19, 2020
I haven't used SQream personally. However, if you are only considering GPU based rdbms's please check the following https://hackernoon.com/which-gpu-database-is-right-for-me-6ceef6a17505
2 out of 4 answers
Russell Rothstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 27, 2020
Morten, the most popular comparisons of SQream can be found here: https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/sqream-db-alternatives-and-competitors The top ones include Cassandra, MemSQL, MongoDB, and Vertica.
reviewer1219965 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 27, 2020
I haven't used SQream personally. However, if you are only considering GPU based rdbms's please check the following https://hackernoon.com/which-gpu-database-is-right-for-me-6ceef6a17505
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
5%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
4%
 

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 operates 24/7, providing services to sellers and customers alike, the need for real-ti...
What needs improvement with Cassandra?
Cassandra is very complex to manage. Sometimes, I need to involve a senior DevOps engineer if we encounter a problem. About a year ago, we were unable to recover data without help from a senior Dev...
What do you like most about Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Apple 2. Netflix 3. Facebook 4. Instagram 5. Twitter 6. eBay 7. Spotify 8. Uber 9. Airbnb 10. Adobe 11. Cisco 12. IBM 13. Microsoft 14. Yahoo 15. Reddit 16. Pinterest 17. Salesforce 18. LinkedIn 19. Hulu 20. Airbnb 21. Walmart 22. Target 23. Sony 24. Intel 25. Cisco 26. HP 27. Oracle 28. SAP 29. GE 30. Siemens 31. Volkswagen 32. Toyota
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cassandra vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,690 professionals have used our research since 2012.