Apache Cassandra

Name

Apache Cassandra

Legal name

The Apache Software Foundation

Website

https://cassandra.apache.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Wilmington

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Open Source Distribution: Apache Cassandra is freely available under the Apache License 2.0. The core database is open source with no licensing fees or revenue directly generated from the software itself.
2. Commercial Distributions and Support (Third-party): Third-party companies like DataStax, Instaclustr, and Sky UK provide commercial distributions, enterprise support, managed services, and tooling around Apache Cassandra. These commercial entities generate revenue from enterprises seeking production support and enterprise-grade features.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Apache Cassandra is an open-source, distributed NoSQL database that delivers linear scalability, proven fault tolerance, and high availability with no single points of failure across commodity hardware and cloud infrastructure. The platform supports replication across multiple datacenters with tunable consistency, masterless peer-to-peer architecture, and is available in current major versions 5.0, 4.1, and 4.0. Customers include Netflix, Bloomberg, Apple, Backblaze, and Instana running mission-critical workloads at petabyte scale.

Product overview

Apache Cassandra is an open source NoSQL distributed database platform. The core product is the Apache Cassandra database itself, which provides scalable, highly available data storage without compromising performance. The platform includes official language drivers (Java Driver 4.x, Python Driver, Go Driver, Node.js Driver) for application connectivity, plus supporting tools including Cassandra Sidecar for JVM management and Cassandra Analytics for analytical processing. Key add-on capabilities in recent releases include Vector Search for AI applications, Storage Attached Indexes for enhanced querying, and Dynamic Data Masking for security. The K8ssandra platform provides production-ready Kubernetes deployment. The ecosystem also includes community-maintained tools like Reaper (repair management), Medusa (backup/restore), and various Kubernetes operators. The project follows semantic versioning with major releases approximately yearly, currently supporting versions 5.0, 4.1, and 4.0.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Cassandra: The primary commercial name/trademark for the Apache Cassandra distributed database system, used as Apache Cassandra® or simply Cassandra.

Products and services

• Apache Cassandra Open-source NoSQL distributed database providing linear scalability, proven fault tolerance on commodity hardware or cloud infrastructure, masterless architecture with no single points of failure, and multi-datacenter replication with tunable consistency. Available under Apache License 2.0 for enterprise and developer use at any scale.
• Cassandra Java Driver Official Java language driver for Apache Cassandra providing programmatic access to Cassandra clusters using CQL (Cassandra Query Language); available on Maven Central. Used by Java application developers building on Cassandra.
• Cassandra Python Driver Official Python driver for Apache Cassandra (cassandra-driver), available on PyPI. Enables Python applications to connect to and query Cassandra databases using CQL.
• Cassandra Go Driver Official Go driver (gocql) for Apache Cassandra, providing Go language support for connecting to and interacting with Cassandra clusters.
• Cassandra Node.js Driver Official Node.js driver for Apache Cassandra, available on npm. Enables JavaScript and TypeScript applications to connect to and query Cassandra databases using CQL.
• K8ssandra Open-source production-ready platform for running Apache Cassandra on Kubernetes. Combines cass-operator for cluster deployment, Reaper for repairs, and Medusa for backup into a unified distribution for production Kubernetes workloads.

Quantifiable outcome

• 5x faster streaming for cluster scaling operations
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration12 records

AI capability2 records

Feature12 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• DataStaxcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDataStax is a major contributor to Apache Cassandra, providing DataStax Enterprise (commercial distribution), the cass-operator for Kubernetes, Stargate API (GraphQL for Cassandra), and various enterprise tools including the DataStax Kafka Connector and Bulk Loader. DataStax has been instrumental in developing features like audit logging and streaming improvements.
• InstaclustrcoreTechnology or IntegrationInstaclustr provides managed Apache Cassandra services, contributed the Instaclustr Kubernetes Operator for Cassandra, and participated in testing and validation of Cassandra 4.0. They offer open source tools including Cassandra Exporter for metrics collection and contributed to the cass-operator project.
• NetflixcoreTechnology or IntegrationNetflix is a major user and contributor to Apache Cassandra, using it for mission-critical persistence needs. Netflix implemented the audit logging feature (CASSANDRA-12151), contributed Zero Copy Streaming improvements, and has documented significant operational learnings including 71% cost reduction and 35x data capacity increase.
• The Last PicklemajorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerThe Last Pickle is a consulting company specializing in Apache Cassandra, contributing open source tools like Cassandra Reaper (repair scheduling) and Cassandra Medusa (backup/restore). They provide training, consulting, and support services, and contributed significantly to Cassandra 4.0 testing and documentation.
• Sky UKmajorTechnology or IntegrationSky UK developed the sky-uk cassandra-operator for Kubernetes and participated in the Kubernetes SIG efforts to create a community-based operator. Their operator was one of the major publicly available Cassandra Kubernetes operators.
• Orange TelecommajorTechnology or IntegrationOrange Telecom developed CassKop (Cassandra Kubernetes Operator) and Multi-CassKop for multi-cluster support. CassKop automates Cassandra operations including deploying rack-aware clusters, adding/removing nodes, and configuring C and JVM parameters.
• K8ssandracoreTechnology or IntegrationK8ssandra is an open source production-ready platform for running Apache Cassandra on Kubernetes, combining cass-operator, Reaper for repairs, and Medusa for backup into a unified distribution. K8ssandra 1.0 was released in February 2021.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• MongoDB: MongoDB is a leading document-oriented NoSQL database competing directly with Cassandra in large-scale operational data workloads. Both target enterprises needing horizontal scalability and high availability, with MongoDB emphasizing developer-friendly JSON document models versus Cassandra's wide-column model.
• ScyllaDB: ScyllaDB is a drop-in Cassandra-compatible NoSQL database written in C++ for substantially higher throughput and lower latency. It is the most direct open-source competitor to Cassandra, sharing the same query language (CQL) and architecture while differentiating on performance.
• DataStax: DataStax builds commercial Astra DB (DBaaS) and DataStax Enterprise on top of Apache Cassandra, providing enterprise support, the cass-operator for Kubernetes, and the Stargate API layer. It is the primary commercial distribution and managed-service counterpart to the open-source Cassandra project.
• Couchbase: Couchbase is a distributed NoSQL document database with a SQL-like query language (N1QL) targeting enterprise operational workloads. It competes with Cassandra for high-throughput, low-latency OLTP use cases, with particular strength in mobile and edge synchronization scenarios.
• Apache HBase: Apache HBase is an open-source, distributed wide-column NoSQL database on top of HDFS and Hadoop. It is a sibling Apache project that competes with Cassandra for big-data operational workloads, particularly in Hadoop-centric environments.
• FoundationDB: FoundationDB is an open-source distributed ACID database acquired by Apple, providing strongly consistent transactional semantics with horizontal scalability. It competes philosophically with Cassandra on distributed consistency, though with a different consistency-performance trade-off.
• Redis Enterprise: Redis is an in-memory NoSQL data store with enterprise-grade clustering and persistence. While architecturally different (in-memory vs disk-based), Redis competes with Cassandra for high-throughput, low-latency operational use cases, particularly caching, session management, and real-time analytics.

Broad incumbents

• Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra): Amazon Keyspaces is AWS's fully managed Cassandra-compatible database service, offering the same CQL API without operational overhead. It directly competes with self-managed Cassandra and commercial vendors by abstracting cluster operations within the AWS ecosystem.
• Azure Cosmos DB: Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft's globally distributed, multi-model cloud database with Cassandra API compatibility. As a hyperscaler incumbent, it competes for the same distributed NoSQL workloads as Cassandra with tighter Azure integration.
• Google Cloud Bigtable: Google Cloud Bigtable is Google's managed wide-column NoSQL service, originally developed to power Google's own services. It addresses many of the same large-scale operational analytics and time-series use cases that Cassandra targets, often winning on Google Cloud.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/apache/cassandra
• YouTubeyoutube.com/c/PlanetCassandra
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/apache-cassandra
• Xx.com/cassandra

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Apache Cassandra