Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cassandra vs PostgreSQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 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 Vector Databases
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (6th)
PostgreSQL
Ranking in Vector Databases
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 1.8%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 5.2%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vector Databases
 

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.
PavithrarajShetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers simplicity and is cheaply priced
I haven't gone through the scalability aspect since I was using MySQL Server. I haven't worked to a high level in PostgreSQL, but with MySQL Server, I have managed clustering and partitioning. I think I haven't put much focus on PostgreSQL, so I am not sure how it behaves or how it works.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cassandra is good. It's better than CouchDB, and we are using it in parallel with CouchDB. Cassandra looks better and is more user-friendly."
"Its retrieval is similar to an RDBMS, so our team finds it easy to adapt."
"We can add almost one million columns to the solution."
"I'd rate the solution ten out of ten."
"The solution's database capabilities are very good."
"I am satisfied with the performance."
"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."
"Can achieve continuous data without a single downtime because of node to node ring architecture."
"The product is very similar to the SQL Server."
"The solution is open-source and free to use."
"One of the most valuable features is real-time data capture; it optimizes database performance. I think using real-time data capture reduces job running time and the amount of data sent at once with batch loads."
"Clustering will be the number 1 feature. It is also open-source so it is free. It can also be clustered, to allow fault tolerance."
"The community support and the open-source community for it are good."
"The product is easy to use and works fast for relational databases."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"With the database, you can provide a multi-component at the same service with the same performance, scalability, or all those things."
 

Cons

"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."
"It can be difficult to analyze what's going on inside of the database relative to other databases. It can also be difficult to troubleshoot sometimes."
"The disc space is lacking. You need to free it up as you are working."
"The solution is limited to a linear performance."
"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."
"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."
"Interface is not user friendly."
"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."
"The solution could improve the integration."
"PostgreSQL could improve by adding data warehousing tools."
"It needs more integration."
"The performance of PostgreSQL could improve."
"It could be more secure."
"I have noticed that user and access management should be improved."
"I'm not really able to customize it."
"The solution needs to improve the query, documentation, and JSON data functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's open-source version."
"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."
"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."
"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."
"Affordable solution."
"We use the open-source version of PostgreSQL and not the enterprise edition."
"We do not pay for licensing."
"It is an open-source platform."
"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."
"The community version of Postgre is basically free."
"It is also open-source so it is free."
"It is open-source. If you use it on-premise, it is free. It also has enterprise or commercial versions. If you go for the cloud version, there will be a cost, but it is lower than Oracle or Microsoft."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vector Databases solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
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...
How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What do you like most about PostgreSQL?
It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?
The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.
 

Comparisons

 

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
1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg
Find out what your peers are saying about Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.