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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
24
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 (11th)
 

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

"The most valuable features of this solution are its speed and distributed nature."
"Overall, I would rate Cassandra as nine because of its fast writes, which really suit our use cases mostly."
"Our primary use case for the solution is testing."
"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."
"Can achieve continuous data without a single downtime because of node to node ring architecture."
"The most valuable features of Cassandra are the NoSQL database, high performance, and zero-copy streaming."
"The most valuable features of Cassandra are its scaling capabilities and its non-SQL nature capabilities."
"I am getting much better performance than relational databases."
"The feature of the product that is most important is the speed. I needed a columnar database, and its speed is what it's built to do, and so that's what really does differentiate Vertica from its competitors."
"The performance is very good and the aggregate records are fast."
"I enjoy the cybersecurity and backup features."
"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. ​"
"Allows us to take volumes and process them at a very high speed."
"Initiate on one node, and the RPM propagates automatically to all other nodes. ​"
"Vertica enabled us to close large deals. Customers with large data sets had to be migrated from PostgreSQL to Vertica due to performance."
"I like the projection feature, which increases query performance."
 

Cons

"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."
"Batching bulk data can cause performance issues."
"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."
"We found some issues with the batch inserts when the data volume is large."
"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."
"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."
"Interface is not user friendly."
"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 integration with AI has room for improvement."
"Performance of management of metadata layer (database catalog) needs improvement. We still have to have smaller customers on PostgreSQL; Vertica cannot manage thousands of schemata."
"When it is about to reach the maximum storage capacity, it becomes slow."
"The documentation of Vertica is an area with shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Documentation has become much better, but can always use some improvement."
"Limitations in group by projections is where I would like to see an improvement."
"If you do not utilize the tuning tools like projections, encoding, partitions, and statistics, then performance and scalability will suffer."
"Fact-to-fact joins on multi-billion record tables perform poorly."
 

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."
"I use the tool's open-source version."
"We pay for a license."
"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."
"There are licensing fees that must be paid, but I'm not sure if they are paid monthly or yearly."
"The price could be cheaper and it is best to negotiate the price."
"The pricing for this solution is very reasonable compared to other vendors."
"The pricing and licensing depend on the size of your environment and the zone where you want to implement."
"I think it's starting to get a little expensive. Open source products are starting to get more robust, so I think that's something that they need to start looking at in terms of licensing."
"It's an expensive product"
"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."
"The price is reasonable. We use a pay per license model. Firstly, you need to buy a license. After that, you mainly pay the annual support fee of around 20% or 25%. I think their prices are quite reasonable."
"The pricing could improve, it is a little expensive."
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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
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Retailer
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
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?
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 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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.