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Cassandra vs MongoDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (14th)
MongoDB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (5th), Managed NoSQL Databases (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 10.5%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MongoDB is 14.7%, down from 25.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases
 

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.
Uzair Faruqi - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Can achieve continuous data without a single downtime because of node to node ring architecture."
"The time series data was one of the best features along with auto publishing."
"The most valuable features of Cassandra are the NoSQL database, high performance, and zero-copy streaming."
"I am getting much better performance than relational databases."
"Our primary use case for the solution is testing."
"Its retrieval is similar to an RDBMS, so our team finds it easy to adapt."
"Overall, I would rate Cassandra as nine because of its fast writes, which really suit our use cases mostly."
"It is easy to set up."
"The installation is very easy to do and understand."
"It is convenient to use because we can do manipulations with the JSON data that we get. There are also a lot of joins and associations with MongoDB, which makes it easy to use for us."
"Scalability seems good. I've never been even close to finding the limits. I've run a couple of notes of redundancy but I've never had any problems with scalability."
"We haven't had any issues with stability."
"MongoDB stores the JSON data, and it's easy for me to understand because I'm a JavaScript Developer."
"It's easy to use."
"I like the schemaless architecture that it follows. I also like the sharding that it provides."
 

Cons

"We found some issues with the batch inserts when the data volume is large."
"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."
"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."
"The secondary index in Cassandra was a bit problematic and could be improved."
"Cassandra is very complex to manage. Sometimes, I need to involve a senior DevOps engineer if we encounter a problem."
"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."
"Simplifying the aggregation framework would be an improvement."
"The scalability of the product is acceptable, but with MongoDB, the big problem is the cost."
"It would be much more useful if I have an admin user and a password."
"MongoDB could be more secure."
"They could provide more documentation and examples for adding pipeline stages."
"I rate the support from MongoDB a four out of five."
"We'd like information about client onboarding experience and success stories. It would help to have something to show to internal stakeholders."
"MongoDB should better support small and medium companies. There are a lot of clients out there that are interested, however, they need something lighter and less complex and something not so expensive upfront."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."
"Cassandra is a free open source solution, but there is a commercial version available called DataStax Enterprise."
"I use the tool's open-source version."
"We pay for a license."
"I'm using the free version of MongoDB."
"MongoDB is an open-source solution."
"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."
"There is an enterprise license and it could be cheaper. We are using the free open source version."
"It's a community edition, so we do not pay anything."
"The solution is open source, so it is free."
"I don't know, but I have heard from people who procure it that it is much cheaper than Oracle."
"Our customers pay for yearly licenses for MongoDB."
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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
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
 

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?
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 e...
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 like SQL or PostgreSQL ( /products/postgresql-reviews ) already exist, MongoDB r...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Cassandra vs. MongoDB and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.