Apache Cassandra vs. MongoDB

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cassandra
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Cassandra is a no-SQL database from Apache.N/A
MongoDB
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
MongoDB is an open source document-oriented database system. It is part of the NoSQL family of database systems. Instead of storing data in tables as is done in a "classical" relational database, MongoDB stores structured data as JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas (MongoDB calls the format BSON), making the integration of data in certain types of applications easier and faster.
$0
per month
Pricing
Apache CassandraMongoDB
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Shared
$0
per month
Serverless
$0.10million reads
million reads
Dedicated
$57
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CassandraMongoDB
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFully managed, global cloud database on AWS, Azure, and GCP
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache CassandraMongoDB
TrustRadius Insights
Apache CassandraMongoDB
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Cassandra and MongoDB are NoSQL databases designed to store large amounts of data in a highly scalable way. Cassandra tends to be used by mid-sized companies and larger enterprises, while MongoDB is a popular choice for companies of all sizes.

MongoDB is great for smaller businesses due to its affordability and flexible querying. Large enterprises may prefer Cassandra due to its scalability and safeguards against database downtime.

Features

Cassandra and MongoDB both have essential NoSQL database features, but they also have some standout features that set them apart.

Cassandra is a highly scalable database solution that can manage large amounts of unstructured data. Additionally, Cassandra utilizes multiple master nodes, so if one node goes down, data availability doesn’t suffer as long as other nodes are available. Cassandra is easy to set up, even without support, in part due to simple data replication capabilities.

MongoDB uses a data-oriented data model that makes it straightforward to perform data analysis. Secondary indexes are also supported by MongoDB, which makes querying flexible and fast as long as the queried documents aren’t missing indexes. JavaScript developers will also have an easy time working with MongoDB as it has a robust API with nodeJS.

Limitations

Although Cassandra and MongoDB both perform basic NoSQL database functions, they both also have some significant limitations that should be considered.

Cassandra offers limited support for secondary indexing. As a result, users must query by primary keys. Querying by primary keys limits flexibility in data modeling as data must be structured based on the queries users want to use rather than the structure of the data itself. Administration and management of Cassandra databases can also be taxing as there are frequent rolling updates that are not automated.

MongoDB’s indexing allows for quick querying if all indexes are present, but nay missing indexes can result in slowdown as each document in a collection needs to be searched. Additionally, MongoDB only has one master node per cluster. If the master node ever goes down, the data it holds will briefly become unavailable until a new node replaces it. Setup for MongoDB is more complicated than Cassandra, so support may be necessary for some organizations.

Pricing

Cassandra is an open-source NoSQL database, so the source code is available for free. Various third-party vendors provide hosting and support for Cassandra, so pricing can vary. Depending on storage and support features, some Cassandra vendors start as low as $0.36 per hour.

MongoDB has official support for three different cloud providers, AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. Pricing depends on the cloud provider chosen, as well as cluster size and storage requirements. MongoDB pricing can start as low as a few cents per hour.

Features
Apache CassandraMongoDB
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
Apache Cassandra
8.0
Ratings
10% below category average
MongoDB
10.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Performance8.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Availability8.80 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Concurrency7.60 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Security8.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Scalability9.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Data model flexibility6.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
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Apache CassandraMongoDB
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
Apache CassandraMongoDB
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache CassandraMongoDB
Likelihood to Recommend
Cassandra excels in a broad range of applications -- especially if you understand its data model and write your applications accordingly. It's an excellent choice for time-series data, and a poor choice for application queues. It performs the best if you can simply record history and compute from it, rather than going back and editing or deleting things a lot.
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MongoDB [is] great at storing JSON data grouped into "collections". In this format, you can store any JSON documents and conveniently categorize them by collections. The JSON document contained in MongoDB is called binary JSON or BSON and, like any other document in this format, is unstructured. Therefore, unlike traditional DBMS, any kind of data can be stored in collections, and this flexibility is combined with the horizontal scalability of the database. It should be noted that MongoDB does not have links between documents and “collections” (this is partially compensated by the Database Reference - links in the DBMS, but this does not completely solve the problem). As a result, a situation arises in which there is a certain set of data that is not related to other information in the database, and there is no way to combine data from different documents. In SQL systems, this would be an elementary task.
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Pros
  • High Availability - we utilize the data replication features of Cassandra. This enables us to access our data even when several nodes have gone down
  • Data Locality - our architecture combines Cassandra storage nodes and computation nodes in the same machine. This enables us to utilize data locality and limit expensive network IO to read data.
  • Elasticity - Cassandra is a shared nothing architecture. Nodes can be added very easily and they discover the network topology. As soon as a node has joined the Cassandra ring, the data is redistributed among the existing nodes and streamed to it automatically.
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  • Easy to learn. When I picked up MongoDB for the first time, I had little background in database management or modeling. If you have a background in javascript (and JSON)... then you can figure out how to use MongoDB pretty fast.
  • Fast performance.
  • It's relatively easy to set up in certain environments because there are lots of ready-made solutions out there.
  • There's a lot of support in the existing ecosystem for it —, especially in the node.js realm.
  • Query syntax is pretty simple to grasp and utilize.
  • Aggregate functions are powerful.
  • Scaling options.
  • Documentation is quite good and versioned for each release.
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Cons
  • No Ad-Hoc Queries: Cassandra data storage layer is basically a key-value storage system. This means that you must "model" your data around the queries you want to surface, rather than around the structure of the data itself.
  • There are no aggregations queries available in Cassandra.
  • Not fit for transactional data.
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  • I love the idea of Map-Reduce native support in MongoDB. Admittedly I have not used it as much as I would like -- it always seems to trip me up.
  • Recent additions to the aggregation queries have helped reduce (no pun intended) my need to better wield the weapon that is Map-Reduce.
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Likelihood to Renew
I would recommend Cassandra DB to those who know their use case very well, as well as know how they are going to store and retrieve data. If you need a guarantee in data storage and retrieval, and a DB that can be linearly grown by adding nodes across availability zones and regions, then this is the database you should choose.
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MongoDB is one of the most famous non-relational databases in the world, there are famous active projects that use this database. I think that the same company that develops the database gives you the online induction totally free is something that really is very positive. Accounts with a first-class support to be able to relate the correct implementation of the database, in addition to teaching you the best practices to optimize your projects, I believe that with this decision it is more than obvious which is the best decision at the time of seeing with which database to work.
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Usability
It’s great tool but it can be complicated when it comes administration and maintenance.
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It is one of the reasons why we prefer it to store documents in a JSON-style format, to access the desired document very quickly regardless of its size, to be readable by human eyes, and to be easily scalable and manageable.
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Support Rating
Sometimes instead giving straight answer, we ‘re getting transfered to talk professional service.
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I have reached multiple times to the MongoDB community for the help and they have provided each and easy solution for every problem. Over the internet and on stack overflow many people responds over the challenges. Now this tool is very much used in every company and projects so internally many people are there to give a support.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
While the setup and configuration of MongoDB is pretty straight forward, having a vendor that performs automatic backups and scales the cluster automatically is very convenient. If you do not have a system administrator or DBA familiar with MongoDB on hand, it's a very good idea to use a 3rd party vendor that specializes in MongoDB hosting. The value is very well worth it over hosting it yourself since the cost is often reasonable among providers.
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Alternatives Considered
Apache Cassandra has the best of both worlds, it is a Java based NoSQL, linearly scalable, best in class
tunable performance across different workloads, fault tolerant, distributed, masterless, time series database. We have used both Apache HBase and MongoDB for some use cases which were within hadoop setup and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) document store respectively, but given the overall factors favoring Apache Cassandra, it is a technology choice for multiple platforms!
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The environment I work in is somewhat unique in that we use both MySQL and MongoDB. However, each is used for specific purposes that the other is not well suited for. MongoDB is not a relational database like MySQL, so it serves as the perfect place to dump key bits of data for quick retrieval later. This is something we can't easily do with MySQL. On this smaller database, MongoDB also lets us retrieve data more quickly with its fast and efficient querying.
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Return on Investment
  • The open source version of Cassandra is only suggested for learning the basic concepts and play with its core features. Unless you really want to invest a lot in your developers and architects knowing every detail of Cassandra, I prefer the DataStax enterprise version. Although the license cost is relatively high, I think they it is worth it. I'm thinking about the support, the monitoring tool OpsCenter, and the integration of Solr and Spark (for data analysis).
  • Cassandra didn't fully replace our old and traditional relation database Oracle. In addition, it opens another door for us to deal with some special business use cases that NoSQL database can do better in a more feasible and efficient way.
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  • We can make more open and flexible systems due to its easy adaptation to new evolutions in web applications.
  • In the latest versions it offers support for different transactions and we could carry out real tests related to the concurrency of the application.
  • MongoDB allows you to have distributed clusters, which improves the speed of the queries by reducing the latency that exists between the database cluster and the service that executes the query.
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ScreenShots

MongoDB Screenshots

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