Open-source alternatives to Cassandra

RocksDB is a high-performance, embeddable persistent key-value library and storage engine based on Log-Structured Merge-trees. It is designed to provide durable storage for large-scale datasets, integrating directly into applications to manage data on flash and RAM-based hardware. The engine is distinguished by its focus on minimizing read and write amplification through multi-threaded compaction and custom memory allocators. It features specialized optimizations for flash storage, including support for zoned block devices, and provides the ability to extend store behavior via external plugin

Cockroach is a distributed SQL database designed to scale horizontally across multiple nodes while maintaining strict ACID compliance and global data consistency. It functions as a relational database engine that automatically partitions data into ranges, rebalancing them across a cluster to accommodate growing storage and throughput requirements. By utilizing a distributed consensus protocol, the system ensures that all nodes agree on the order of operations, providing fault tolerance and continuous availability even in the event of hardware failures. The system distinguishes itself through

Titan is a distributed graph database and computing engine designed for storing and querying massive datasets of interconnected nodes and edges across multi-machine clusters. It functions as a scalable graph storage layer and transactional store, providing a framework for executing large-scale graph processing jobs and deep traversals. The system is distinguished by its pluggable storage backend, which decouples the graph engine from the physical persistence layer. It utilizes vertex-cut data partitioning to balance processing loads and a set-cardinality property model that allows single prop

VictoriaMetrics is a high-performance, scalable time series database and observability platform designed for long-term storage and analysis of metric, log, and trace data. It functions as a unified backend for monitoring ecosystems, offering full compatibility with industry-standard protocols and query languages. The system is built to handle massive data volumes through a distributed architecture that supports horizontal scaling and efficient data lifecycle management. The platform distinguishes itself through a storage engine that utilizes consistent hashing for data sharding and log-struct

Badger is an embeddable key-value store written in Go that provides persistent data storage for byte keys and values. It is a persistent database that utilizes a tiered LSM tree storage model to optimize disk storage and retrieval efficiency. The system features an ACID transaction engine that ensures data integrity through serializable snapshot isolation and multi-version concurrency control. It also provides an encrypted key-value store with data-at-rest encryption and a managed encrypted key registry to secure stored information. The engine covers a broad set of capabilities including hig

This project is a distributed, document-oriented database system designed to store information in flexible, hierarchical structures. It supports horizontal scaling through automated sharding and maintains high availability across global clusters using a multi-node replication protocol. By executing multi-document operations as atomic units, the system ensures data integrity and consistency across distributed environments. The platform distinguishes itself by integrating advanced vector-based indexing, which enables semantic similarity searches alongside traditional geospatial and lexical quer

Olric is a distributed data grid and in-memory key-value store that partitions and replicates data across a cluster of servers. It serves as a shared memory system for managing distributed maps, performing atomic operations, and acting as an in-memory data cache. The system provides a distributed locking mechanism for concurrency control and a pub-sub messaging system that broadcasts and routes messages over named channels across the cluster. The platform covers wide-ranging capabilities including cluster management and orchestration, data replication with configurable quorums, and automated

LevelDB is an embedded database library and persistent storage engine that provides a sorted key-value store. It uses a log-structured merge-tree architecture to map byte arrays to values, running directly within a process to provide storage without the need for a separate server process. The system is distinguished by its use of custom comparison functions to define key ordering, enabling efficient range scans and sequenced lookups. It ensures data reliability through atomic batch execution, consistent snapshot generation, and log-based recovery after failures. The engine covers broad capab

ScyllaDB is a distributed NoSQL database engine designed for high-throughput data storage and low-latency performance at scale. It functions as a shard-aware platform that manages large-scale datasets across distributed clusters, providing a foundation for real-time applications that require consistent availability and operational stability. The system distinguishes itself through a shared-nothing architecture that distributes data across independent CPU cores to eliminate lock contention. It incorporates a user-space networking stack and an asynchronous event-driven engine to maximize hardwa

GreptimeDB is a distributed, open-source time-series database built for unified observability. It stores and queries metrics, logs, and traces together in a single columnar engine, supporting both SQL and PromQL for analysis. The database is designed as a Kubernetes-native operator with a decoupled compute and storage architecture, enabling horizontal scaling and multi-region deployment. What distinguishes GreptimeDB is its role as a multi-protocol ingestion gateway, accepting data through OpenTelemetry, Prometheus Remote Write, InfluxDB, Loki, Elasticsearch, Kafka, and MQTT protocols without

OceanBase is a distributed SQL database designed for high availability and strong consistency across multiple nodes and regions. It functions as a hybrid transactional and analytical processing engine, allowing real-time analytics and transactions to execute on a single data copy. The system also serves as a vector database engine for indexing and querying vector data to power semantic search and recommendation systems. The platform features native compatibility layers for MySQL and Oracle, enabling the migration of legacy workloads without rewriting SQL code. It utilizes a Paxos-based distri

rqlite is a distributed relational database that replicates SQLite data across a cluster using the Raft consensus algorithm. It functions as a fault-tolerant storage system that provides high availability and a web API for executing SQL queries and managing relational data without requiring native database drivers. The system distinguishes itself by using an HTTP SQL interface to expose database operations and cluster management. It features a real-time change data capture stream that pushes database mutations to external HTTP endpoints via webhooks and supports the scaling of read throughput

This project is a comprehensive educational resource focused on the principles, patterns, and trade-offs required to design scalable, reliable, and high-performance distributed systems. It provides a structured curriculum that covers the fundamental architectural strategies necessary for building modern software infrastructure, ranging from high-level system decomposition to low-level networking and data management. The repository distinguishes itself by offering deep dives into complex architectural patterns, such as microservices-based decomposition, event-driven communication, and command-

TiDB is a horizontally scalable, distributed SQL database designed to provide consistent transactional storage and high-performance analytical processing within a single unified architecture. It utilizes a decoupled compute-storage design and a distributed key-value storage layer to ensure horizontal scalability and efficient range-based queries. By employing a consensus-based replication algorithm, the system maintains high availability and automatic failover across multiple nodes and geographical regions. The platform distinguishes itself through its hybrid transactional and analytical proc

LiteDB is a serverless, embedded NoSQL document database for .NET applications. It persists data into a single portable file, functioning as a BSON data store that resides within the application process rather than running as a separate server. The system is ACID compliant, utilizing write-ahead logging to ensure atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable transactions. It includes built-in encryption to provide secure local data storage and protect files on disk from unauthorized access. The project covers object-document mapping to convert classes into document formats, indexed search capabi

PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system designed for the persistent storage and retrieval of structured information. It functions as an ACID-compliant database server, utilizing standard query language protocols to maintain data consistency and reliability across large-scale application datasets. The system distinguishes itself through an extensible architecture that allows for the definition of custom data types, operators, and indexing methods. It employs multi-version concurrency control to enable simultaneous read and write operations without blocking, supported by a

goleveldb is an embedded key-value storage database for Go. It provides local data persistence and indexing, allowing applications to store and retrieve information using unique keys without requiring a separate server. The database organizes data using a log-structured merge-tree and persistent indexing in lexicographical order. This structure supports efficient range scans and prefix-based searches. The system includes capabilities for atomic batch writes to ensure data consistency and avoid partial updates. Performance is managed through write-ahead logging, memory-based buffering, and bl

Qdrant is a high-performance vector similarity database designed to store, index, and search high-dimensional vectors alongside structured metadata. It functions as a distributed search engine that manages large-scale data clusters, providing low-latency retrieval and complex filtering capabilities. The system is built to serve as a specialized middleware layer, connecting machine learning pipelines and AI agents to persistent storage for intelligent information retrieval and recommendation tasks. The platform distinguishes itself through advanced retrieval techniques, including support for h

OpenTSDB is a distributed time series database and metrics engine designed for storing and managing massive volumes of high-cardinality system metrics. It functions as a data store and analytics platform that enables large-scale metric ingestion and infrastructure performance monitoring across a distributed cluster. The system distinguishes itself through a distributed storage abstraction that supports multiple backends such as HBase, Cassandra, and Google Bigtable. It utilizes a hierarchical metric tree to organize time series and employs numeric identifier indexing to reduce storage footpri

Scylla is a distributed wide column NoSQL database designed as a high-performance data store. It functions as a Cassandra compatible database and a DynamoDB compatible store, implementing a shared-nothing architecture built on an asynchronous event-driven framework. The system emulates cloud-based APIs to support applications built for proprietary cloud protocols and implements the Cassandra Query Language for high-throughput workloads. This allows for the migration of cloud workloads to self-hosted environments while maintaining API compatibility. The project covers distributed data storage

RisingWave is a cloud-native streaming database and real-time analytics engine that uses standard SQL to process continuous data streams. It functions as a streaming data lakehouse, combining the capabilities of a streaming SQL database with a platform that integrates streaming ingestion with open table formats. The system is distinguished by its use of the PostgreSQL wire protocol, allowing it to integrate with existing SQL tools and drivers. It employs a decoupled compute and storage architecture, persisting streaming state and materialized views in cloud object storage to enable independen

This project is a comprehensive Java backend engineering guide and technical reference focused on high-concurrency design, distributed systems, and microservices architecture. It provides detailed strategies for decomposing monolithic applications, managing service discovery, and implementing the architectural patterns required for scalable backend environments. The repository distinguishes itself through an extensive collection of big data algorithmic references and database scaling strategies. It covers memory-efficient techniques for analyzing massive datasets, such as Top-K element extrac

Pinot is a distributed, columnar analytical database designed for high-concurrency, low-latency query processing. It functions as a real-time OLAP datastore, enabling interactive, user-facing analytics by ingesting and querying massive datasets from both streaming and batch sources. The system architecture relies on a centralized controller for cluster coordination and a distributed segment-based storage model to ensure horizontal scalability. The platform distinguishes itself through a hybrid ingestion pipeline that unifies real-time event streams and historical batch data into a single quer

RavenDB is a multi-model NoSQL document database designed for high-performance, ACID-compliant data storage. It persists structured information as schema-flexible JSON documents and utilizes a unit-of-work session pattern to track entity changes and batch modifications into atomic transactions. The platform is built on a distributed architecture that supports horizontal scaling through sharding and ensures high availability via multi-node, master-to-master cluster replication. The database distinguishes itself through a self-optimizing query engine that automatically creates and maintains ind

etcd is a distributed key-value store and configuration store designed to maintain a consistent set of data across a cluster of nodes. It functions as a reliable registry for storing and synchronizing critical settings and metadata used by distributed applications. The system implements the Raft consensus algorithm to ensure data consistency and leader election across servers. To protect data transfers and verify node identities, it utilizes a network security layer based on mutual TLS and client certificates. Its capabilities cover distributed configuration management, cluster state synchro

Godis is a Redis-compatible in-memory database and distributed key-value store. It functions as a replicated data store and distributed message broker, implementing the Redis protocol to manage complex data structures in memory. The system provides a geospatial indexing engine for proximity-based queries and distance calculations. It ensures high availability and data durability through master-slave replication and write-ahead logging. The project covers a wide range of capabilities including the management of strings, hash maps, lists, and sorted sets. It supports distributed data clusterin

Pebble is an embedded key-value storage engine written in Go, designed as a library that provides durable, write-optimized data persistence directly within applications. It organizes data using a log-structured merge-tree (LSM-tree) structure, where writes are first buffered in an in-memory skiplist memtable and persisted to a write-ahead log before being flushed to block-based SSTable files on disk. The engine supports atomic batch commits, configurable write synchronization, and automatic background compaction that merges and rewrites sorted runs to reclaim space and maintain read performanc