Cassandra vs PostgreSQL comparison

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Cassandra

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

PostgreSQL and Cassandra both operate in the database management category. While PostgreSQL is suitable for structured data with its comprehensive features, Cassandra has the advantage in handling large-scale data quickly and reliably.

Features: PostgreSQL provides ACID compliance, geospatial support, and robust data types like JSONB, making it a versatile platform for various applications. On the other hand, Cassandra offers high availability and fault tolerance, ideal for distributed systems, and excels in managing large volumes of time-series data with exceptional speed.

Room for Improvement: PostgreSQL could improve its user-friendliness by enhancing installation tools and performance monitoring. It also needs better support for large-scale deployments and advanced analytics. Cassandra could benefit from improved handling of complex queries, particularly those involving JOIN operations, and integrating more user-friendly interfaces could broaden its usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PostgreSQL shows flexibility in hybrid, private cloud, and on-premises environments, supported by a robust community and third-party services. Cassandra also offers diverse deployment options, excelling in cloud environments. Both rely on community-driven assistance, but PostgreSQL's tighter integration with hosting platforms gives it a slight edge.

Pricing and ROI: PostgreSQL is a cost-effective solution due to its open-source nature, offering significant savings compared to proprietary databases. Cassandra is available in a free edition, but enterprise-level features may incur additional costs if commercial support is needed through vendors like DataStax, which can be justifiable for large-scale demands.

To learn more, read our detailed Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL Report (Updated: August 2026).

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Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL

August 2026

Helped 913,683 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:

Categories and Ranking

Cassandra

Ranking in Vector Databases

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

NoSQL Databases (5th)

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Vector Databases

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

128

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 3.9%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 9.1%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vector Databases Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
PostgreSQL	9.1%
Cassandra	3.9%
Other	87.0%

Vector Databases

Featured Reviews

Monirul Islam Khan

Head, Data Integration & Management at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

Has maintained secure document storage and efficient data distribution with peer-to-peer architecture

The functions or features in Cassandra that I have found most valuable are that it is a distributed system similar to Mongo. It's good enough for comparison with another SQL database, so it's smooth and organized for distributed database system. The peer-to-peer architecture in Cassandra is helpful for network decentralization, and I have already introduced that feature. Cassandra features in peer-to-peer as well as another monitoring, so basically, it's good enough for our service. The tunable consistency level in Cassandra is good, and we are using that feature already. In terms of built-in caching and lightweight transactions in Cassandra, the transaction level is good, and it's optimized, so there are no more issues in that database. Based on my experience, Cassandra is good for document management system, as well as distributed database system, and the automatic recovery process is there. Additionally, the database monitoring system or auditing system is well-comparable with other database systems, so we are actually happy to be using this Cassandra database.

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Shobhit Goel

Data Science Architect at publicis Sapient

High-volume transactions have reduced failures and improve customer service efficiency

The best feature is performance, because of which I decided on PostgreSQL. I have also enabled the PG vector plugin on top of PostgreSQL. I have the opportunity to use two different features and two different flavors in a single product, which is the best thing about PostgreSQL. Initially, we had some hiccups around the performance part, but later we did indexing in PostgreSQL and now it is working very well. Even when we are doing 100,000 transactions in a day, PostgreSQL is working excellently. The interface is another best feature. If I need to do any query, I simply install the plugin on my local, which is pgAdmin. Through pgAdmin, I am able to communicate with PostgreSQL and execute all my SQL queries. I am getting a better UI with PostgreSQL as the backend, which is also one of the best options. PG vector is also very strong from PostgreSQL where I have implemented RAG and on a daily basis, I inject thousands of pages of PDF. More than 100 PDFs are coming into my system and one PDF is around 1,000 pages. We are injecting them into PostgreSQL and converting them into dimensions and inserting them into PG vector. The level of transactions we are doing on a daily basis is substantial, and we are getting very good throughput and low latency from PostgreSQL. When we were doing more than 50,000 transactions in a minute with the previous database, we were getting a lot of latency issues with threads getting blocked and abruptly closed unwantedly. After doing extensive research, we decided to move to PostgreSQL. Now, we are doing around 100,000 transactions in PostgreSQL and we are getting good throughput with no latency.

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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 getting much better performance than relational databases."

"The technical evaluation is very good."

"I am satisfied with the performance; so far it has done fairly well and there haven't been any complaints."

"The most valuable features of Cassandra are its scaling capabilities and its non-SQL nature capabilities."

"Setup was very straightforward."

"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."

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

"Some of the valued features of this solution are it has good performance and failover."

More Cassandra pros

"It is easy to install and easy to manage. There is no license on it, so it is free. There is high compatibility with Oracle, and there are many tools for the migration of data from Oracle to Postgre."

"It has allowed us to run a Scada database, which reads data every 2 minutes, and it does this in a very smooth way."

"This is an open-source solution, operates at a high speed, and supports more than one SQL language."

"The product is quite flexible."

"It has completely met our needs. It works, and it is robust."

"PostgreSQL is free, so great ROI!"

"PostgreSQL is the world's most advanced and performant SQL database available."

"I would recommend PostgreSQL to anyone who wants to save costs and deploy a reliable enterprise class database server."

Cons

"Row-level locking is not available; might be very helpful in update use cases."

"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."

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

"If you have a requirement of aggregation and joints, Cassandra doesn't support a solution that can give the aggregation."

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

"Some issues arise from our vendors like Apache slowness and distribution or load balancing from HAProxy, which should better handle consumption for high-level concurrency."

"The disc space is lacking. You need to free it up as you are working."

"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."

More Cassandra cons

"PostgreSQL could improve by being more user-friendly. In SQL Server they have a studio where you can easily do management but not in this solution."

"It's not very user friendly, as it is open source and has no immediate support."

"The only thing for PG vector is if the dimension limit could be increased."

"Also, it's only 7-8/10 when comparing it to an Oracle database."

"The only thing I would really want/need to improve is pgAdmin3."

"This solution could be better integrated with other systems."

"The performance is too low, although we haven't tested for this."

"It should have a better native client tool to manage the databases."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It is an open-source platform."

"Our company pays for it. There are free versions available, but for advanced features, you obviously have to pay."

"We use the open-source version of PostgreSQL and not the enterprise edition."

"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."

"This solution can offer a cheaper choice for customers since it is open-source."

"PostgreSQL is a free and open-source database."

"PostgreSQL is open-source, so if capable admins are available then the setup cost can be $0."

"It is free, but if you need support, you can go for the commercial version called EnterpriseDB. They provide paid support, and they can even do hosting for you if you want standby and support."

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	58
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	49

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cassandra?

The pricing for Cassandra is a little bit high, so it would be better for our community services if they consider community pricing for any non-profit organization like an NGO or other things. It w...

What needs improvement with Cassandra?

Regarding areas of improvement for Cassandra, currently, we are not facing significant issues. Some issues arise from our vendors like Apache slowness and distribution or load balancing from HAProx...

What is your primary use case for Cassandra?

My use case for Cassandra is for a document and other unstructured data management system as well as structured data for ultra-poor member community edition, community members' PII information, so ...

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?

I am not directly involved in the licensing or procurement decisions, so I cannot comment in detail on the price. From an engineering perspective, PostgreSQL is cost-efficient because it is open so...

What needs improvement with PostgreSQL?

While improving reliability, I have noticed that the limitations in PostgreSQL can be complex. For large-scale deployments, configuration, performance tuning, and related tasks can be complex and i...

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Product Reports

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Cassandra

September 2026

Download PostgreSQL product report

September 2026

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

PostgreSQL is a versatile and reliable database management system commonly used for web development, data analysis, and building scalable databases.

It offers advanced features like indexing, replication, and transaction management. Users appreciate its flexibility, performance, and ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. Its robustness, scalability, and support for complex queries make it highly valuable.

Additionally, PostgreSQL's extensibility, flexibility, community support, and frequent updates contribute to its ongoing improvement and stability.

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