# Apache Cassandra

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Apache Cassandra and 15 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source distributed database people recommend for write-heavy workloads and high availability at scale. Common caveat: it is hard to operate, with repair, backup and data-safety pitfalls.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong cost and availability at scale (2 comments): "Cassandra at scale has a demonstrably better cost and availability slo than literally annything else" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49402787)) "Twitter would have been way better off using Cassandra" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47513128))
- Fits write-heavy and AP workloads (2 comments): "Write-heavy applications still may benefit from something like Cassandra" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46368128)) "something like Cassandra for the objects (AP)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378563))
- Specialized database for specific use cases (2 comments): "There's still lots of room for specialization tuned database options like Cassandra, Scylla, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47923590)) "excellent db's meant for very specific use cases" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47923129))

## What people warn about

- Heavy operational burden to manage (6 comments): "It's an operational nightmare, and I will not miss it even the slightest bit if it goes away forever." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393923)) "the joys of the 'repair' cronjob, backups, and commitlogs only occasionally not corrupting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395239)) "Draining a broken Cassandra ring and under high load is hell and ball clenching." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47359978))
- Data loss and backup risks (2 comments): "the absolute horror of foot guns, backup nightmares, data loss scenarios with seemingly safe choices around quorum" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395131)) "the joys of the 'repair' cronjob, backups, and commitlogs only occasionally not corrupting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395239))
- Weak ACID and systems-of-record fit (2 comments): "It would certainly be a boon if Cassandra did better ACID" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47927079)) "Cassandra is no kind of answer for systems of record" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47359646))
- Failed in production at Twitter (2 comments): "it was Twitter who spent a massive effort trying to make it work in production. And failed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47516812)) "Using off-the-shelf solutions like Cassandra didn't work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509675))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [FoundationDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/foundationdb.md): 26 recommend
- [CockroachDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cockroachdb.md): 19 recommend
- [rqlite](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rqlite.md): 13 recommend
- [TiDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tidb.md): 11 recommend
- [Marmot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/marmot.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Apache Cassandra", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apache-cassandra/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).