Total Value Analysis

of YugabyteDB
Anywhere vs.
DataStax Enterprise
Leverage the PRESS framework to evaluate how
your next database can optimize productivity,
resiliency, efficiency, security, and savings.
Introduction
Organizations have made significant progress and investment in
transforming their applications and infrastructure over the past decade.
However, one part of the technology stack has remained largely
unchanged: the transactional database.

Most cloud-native applications still rely on traditional monolithic,

relational databases designed before the cloud era. These often take
weeks to provision and are not architected to meet the demands of
modern applications. Scaling to meet growing customer demands
involves manual database sharding, or deploying a cache in front of the
database and dealing with coherence issues. Resilience requires bolt-on
replication solutions. 

As organizations expand their global reach, geo-distributing the

database for compliance and performance is a significant, often
expensive, and complex, challenge. 

What is the outcome of these legacy database challenges? Expensive

trade-offs, slow innovation, complex operations, and poor customer
experience.

To mitigate the scale and resiliency limitations of traditional relational

database management systems (RDBMS), like Oracle, PostgreSQL, and
DB2, many companies turned to NoSQL solutions like Apache Cassandra
and variants such as DataStax Enterprise. These database solutions
made it simple to achieve cloud scale and resiliency. However,
organizations had to give up the familiarity and power of SQL and strong
consistency, often a high requirement for business-critical transactional
applications. 

While Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise offer an acceptable solution

for many use cases, over the past ten years, a new wave of database
innovations emerged in the form of distributed SQL databases. These
modern, re-architected databases combine the core capabilities of both
SQL and NoSQL into a single, powerful database. One that can help
modernize existing applications and match the needs of cloud-native
applications.

In this paper, we compare DataStax Enterprise, a popular enterprise

NoSQL database built on Apache Cassandra, and YugabyteDB
Anywhere, the simplest way to deploy and manage YugabyteDB at scale
for large enterprises. 

To compare these two solutions, we used the PRESS framework which

evaluates how organizations can improve across five areas: productivity,
resilience, efficiency, security, and savings.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Executive Summary

The objective of this paper is to help you compare YugabyteDB Anywhere and DataStax

Enterprise across a number of key areas. We have created a reference guide that considers the

short and long-term impact of both databases. This enables you to make an informed decision

that aligns with your organization's business requirements. 

The paper is structured around the five critical parameters that make up the YugabyteDB PRESS

framework:

Productivity Resiliency Efficiency

Security Savings

The definition of the five parameters:

Productivity: Increase your rate of innovation and differentiation by bringing new ideas to

production faster.

Resiliency: Ensure apps work seamlessly without any major impact on performance, even

when experiencing node, zone, region, or cloud failures.

Efficiency: Enable database operators to offer an internal DBaaS, make high-impact changes

frequently, and manage more apps with fewer resources.

Security: Secure data anywhere, patch security issues in a timely manner, and limit threat

surface by easily rotating security credentials.

Savings: Reduce both upfront and ongoing costs by optimally allocating or reclaiming

resources as needed.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

We have assigned ratings to YugabyteDB Anywhere (YugabyteDB delivered as a self-managed

database-as-a-service) and DataStax Enterprise for each of the criteria above. This takes into

account the ease of each solution meeting the requirements, and the features currently

available. Although we have done thorough research into the third-party offerings, you should

use this paper as a guide and also conduct your own analysis. 

Below is a brief summary. A more detailed analysis of our findings follows later in the paper.

YugabyteDB
PRESS YugabyteDB DataStax
DataStax Enterprise
Anywhere Ranking
Framework Anywhere Enterprise Ranking Reason
Reason

Faster time to value, Complex data modeling,

accelerated Indexing and querying

migration, easy day challenges, manual
Productivity
4 out of 5 3 out of 5 2 ops, strongly secondary index tables,

consistent challenges with

secondary indexes OpsCenter  

Architectural

resilience, geo- Challenges with 


distribution, zero geo-distribution,

Resiliency
5 out of 5 4 out of 5 downtime, RPO = 0s, demanding backup

RTO = 3s, automatic and restore

sharding, HA/DR

Operationally challenging
Faster deployments,
expansion and upgrades,
operational
challenges with
efficiency while
background compaction,
scaling, automatic
Efficiency issues with garbage
4 out of 5 3 out of 5 large partition
collection, bottlenecks
splitting, enhanced
while scaling, large
compaction
partition issues, time
management
consuming read repairs

License cost savings,

high data density,

Low data density per
infrastructure cost
node, extreme hardware
savings, third party
and hardware refresh
tools savings,
costs, high operator to
database
Savings
5 out of 5 2 out of 5 consolidation savings ,

developer ratio, cost of

eventual consistency,
labor efficient
high storage costs,  

operations ,

high scaling costs, high

improved
replacement server costs
organizational

profitability

End-to-end built-in

security, growing set

of key certifications ,

Mature set of
expanded KMS
certifications, adherence
options, periodic
Security to GDPR compliance,

4 out of 5 4 out of 5 credential rotation ,

support for key

zero downtime
management services
patching,

maintenance, and

upgrades

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

When should you consider

adopting YugabyteDB Anywhere?

YugabyteDB is a leading distributed SQL database designed for organizations

running business-critical, transactional applications. YugabyteDB Anywhere

simplifies delivering a self-managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) at scale,

whether deployed on-premise or in a public or hybrid cloud. 

YugabyteDB Anywhere is the ideal fit for organizations that require strong

data consistency and the familiarity of popular APIs (both PostgreSQL and

Cassandra) along with key cloud native features like high availability,

geo-distribution, and horizontal scalability.

Organizations that are a better fit for YugabyteDB than DataStax Enterprise

will have one or more of the following requirements.

A need for the power and flexibility of SQL Queries: These organizations

want to be able to add new queries quickly and efficiently, as well as

respond to new and changing business needs without requiring new data

models or additional copies of their data. YugabyteDB offers a flexible,

multi-API upper half with the industry’s best PostgreSQL compatibility (the

YSQL API) and a Cassandra-inspired API, YCQL

A need for consistency (ACID), scale, and resiliency: Many companies

sacrificed data consistency for scale and resiliency, but now realize they

can simplify the lives of their operations and app development teams as well

as fix data inaccuracy issues with YugabyteDB.

A need for rapid horizontal scalability: YugabyteDB enables the rapid

addition of new nodes to respond quickly to traffic spikes or new business

needs. While it can scale, DataStax is very hard and slow to scale once in

production, because bootstrapping new nodes requires rebalancing. Users often

have to size their growth into the initial footprint, so they must bear the cost of

overallocated resources that may be wasted or remain unused for a while.

A need to lower hardware and maintenance costs: YugabyteDB provides

much higher density per node, 5 - 10+ TBs per node as well as a

significantly lower overhead for garbage collection. As a result,

organizations that want to dramatically reduce their upfront and ongoing

hardware costs should strongly consider YugabyteDB. Existing YugabyteDB

enterprise customers have seen their cluster sizes reduced by 10x

compared to DataStax and Cassandra. 

A need for secondary index support: Organizations face, or will face,

performance issues with Cassandra’s limited support of secondary indexes.

They are looking for a solution (like YugabyteDB) that offers the core

features of NoSQL along with more of the core relational database

capabilities, such as secondary indexes. 

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

If none of these are current or potential pain points for your organization, and you have the

existing staff on hand that understands (or is already operating) a Cassandra environment,

modernizing to a distributed SQL database like YugabyteDB may not be a high priority at this

time. However, you should keep these considerations in mind, so you can recognize them early

if your applications continue to scale and data accuracy becomes more important.

When should you consider DataStax Enterprise?

We recognize that some applications may not yet need the capabilities that come with

YugabyteDB’s modern architecture. DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is a high-performance, scalable,

and globally distributed database solution built to handle a high volume of data. It has wide

adoption, a strong community, and a range of available resources and tools, making it easy to

find support and solutions. 

Organizations often have a portfolio of databases used by different business units and

applications, based on specific needs and the skill sets available. For non-transactional

applications or smaller applications where data consistency, as well as hardware and storage

efficiencies, are not a high priority, DataStax Enterprise works well. 

Cassandra-based databases, like DataStax Enterprise, deliver value and are well-suited for

applications that share one or more of the following characteristics:

Consistency is a low priority (i.e., not a priority system of record workload): DataStax

Enterprise offers eventual consistency with scale and resilience that is sufficient for many

workloads, but does not offer ACID level consistency.

Asynchronous replication for more than three regions: Organizations can consider DataStax

Enterprise when they need specific replication configurations such as hub/spoke models and

N: N bi-directional replication

Flexible eventually consistent options: YugabyteDB is a distributed relational database that

delivers ACID level consistency for distributed transactions. Cassandra provides a range of

weaker consistency options, providing tradeoffs on performance and how they achieve

eventual consistency (but today, that’s never ACID-level consistency).

Overall, DataStax Enterprise may be a good choice for businesses that prioritize availability and

only need to handle moderate amounts of data where there are minimal concerns about large

infrastructure sprawl and associated costs. DataStax Enterprise may not be the best fit for

businesses that require strong consistency, multi-API support, or low operational complexity.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Overview of Products
DataStax Enterprise is an on-premises database offering from
DataStax. It is a distributed cloud database built on the open-source
NoSQL database Apache Cassandra. DataStax Enterprise provides
high scalability, availability, and performance for modern applications
that require real-time data. DataStax Enterprise includes features
such as multi-datacenter replication, automatic management of data
distribution and replication, search capabilities, and graph
processing. It also includes a visual management tool called DataStax
OpsCenter, which provides a dashboard for monitoring and managing
the entire database cluster. 

DataStax Enterprise has been around for over a decade, which

means it has a strong community and there is a wide range of
resources and tools. As a result, organizations can find support and
locate required skills fairly easily. 

YugabyteDB Anywhere is the self-managed database-as-a-service

offering of YugabyteDB, the cloud-native distributed SQL database
of choice for business-critical transactional applications. YugabyteDB
is 100% open source and uniquely combines enterprise-grade
relational database capabilities (including distributed ACID
transactions) with cloud native operational simplicity, resilience, and
the ability to scale as you go. YugabyteDB offers a multi-API
interface, allowing developers to leverage either a PostgreSQL or
Cassandra-inspired API. YugabyteDB can be deployed anywhere and
is cloud and platform agnostic.

YugabyteDB Anywhere delivers a management and orchestration

layer on top of YugabyteDB to simplify deployment and management
at scale. YugabyteDB Anywhere automates provisioning, unifies 

real-time monitoring, simplifies security management, manages cloud
infrastructure, and offers a multi-cloud API—all backed by 24x7x365
support. YugabyteDB Anywhere helps customers accelerate time to
market, achieve operational efficiency, and unlock developer
productivity. Yugabyte University enables organizations to connect
to a global community of business leaders, architects, developers
and database practitioners and advance your YugabyteDB learning
journey through interactive learning and knowledge sharing for free.
We encourage you to do your own research into the technical
features and business value that each solution offers. You can
find detailed YugabyteDB documentation online at
docs.yugabyte.com.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Using PRESS to Choose the Right Database

Here, we will examine how YugabyteDB Anywhere and DataStax Enterprise (DSE) compare using

the five elements of the PRESS framework (Productivity, Resilience, Efficiency, Security, and

Savings). By measuring against these five key considerations, you can ensure you choose the

best database for your business and IT priorities.

PRODUCTIVITY

An organization's ability to deliver rapid innovation and stay ahead of the competition is often a

direct result of how efficient its developers are. Do developers have the time and tools required

to deliver new services or revenue-impacting enhancements? Or, are they required to spend

valuable time building workarounds into the application to handle various gaps and tradeoffs in

their existing database solutions? 

Along with these common issues, database migration challenges can be a major barrier. It can

slow down, or in many cases prevent, cloud-native and application modernization projects from

moving forward. Organizations can significantly boost their rate of innovation and

competitiveness by focusing on new solutions that minimize these challenges and decrease

time to value.  

Both YugabyteDB Anywhere and DataStax Enterprise offer an alternative to Apache Cassandra.

DataStax Enterprise simply extends Apache Cassandra while YugabyteDB Anywhere offers a

modern distributed storage layer with a powerful Cassandra-compatible API on top. 

These are very different approaches, which impact overall productivity differently. Based on our

analysis, YugabyteDB’s modern architecture gives it an advantage, avoiding many common

productivity issues that exist with Cassandra and Cassandra-based solutions like DataStax

Enterprise.

YugabyteDB: DSE:

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 YugabyteDB Productivity Advantages

YugabyteDB Anywhere is designed to power highly available, scalable, and strongly

consistent transactional applications, while making database and operation teams

more productive with advanced automation for large-scale deployments. By reusing

core PostgreSQL code for the front end, developers can use existing skills and tools.

Compared to DataStax Enterprise, YugabyteDB helps developers:

Interns at

Finserv
Support diverse skills and tools: YugabyteDB provides a flexible query layer with
Company Learn
two key APIs: Cassandra (YCQL) and PostgreSQL (YSQL). Developers familiar with

YugabyteDB
 either PostgreSQL or Cassandra can build on their existing skills and tools to write

to a familiar API while taking advantage of a modern, distributed storage layer.

in Days
This flexibility enables developers to get started quickly and minimizes their

learning curve.

YugabyteDB's strong

PostgreSQL compatibility Add powerful queries as needed: The PostgreSQL-compatible API of

allowed interns new to YugabyteDB allows for simple relational SQL transactions and queries. As new

YugabyteDB to deliver business needs arise that require a new query, they can be implemented quickly

powerful projects to and easily without needing changes to the data model or new copies of the data.

Fiserv. An executive at

Fiserv shared a story Enjoy strongly consistent data: YugabyteDB delivers strongly consistent, ACID

about working with a set transactions across a distributed, scalable database. As a result, developers do

of college interns. Fiserv not need to handle common consistency issues like read after write, concurrency

gave them a problem to controls, and more, within the application.

solve--something they

planned to build into a Manage large-scale deployment: YugabyteDB Anywhere helps you move away

product--and told them from manual, complex Day 2 operations, especially for large clusters. YugabyteDB

to use YugabyteDB. The Anywhere intelligently orchestrates your database scaling, upgrades, backups,

interns knew
monitoring, and security operations across your public, private or hybrid

PostgreSQL but had infrastructure. This helps optimize your systems for performance

never touched

YugabyteDB before. After Leverage the power of global secondary indexes and JSONB: Using advanced

a couple of days of indexes can enhance database performance by enabling the database server to

Google searches and find rows faster. YugabyteDB supports strongly consistent (ACID) secondary

some testing, they were indexes to help you quickly retrieve data using columns that are not part of the

off and running, primary key. YugabyteDB supports global secondary indexes, partial indexes, and

capitalizing on their covering indexes in addition to JSON and JSONB for added data type flexibility

existing PostgreSQL and productivity in both YSQL and YCQL.

knowledge and

experience, and applying Migrate quickly: YugabyteDB Voyager helps you migrate from the most common

this to YugabyteDB legacy and single-cloud relational databases to YugabyteDB quickly and easily.

without any problems. This newly launched migration engine can manage the entire lifecycle of database

migration, including cluster preparation for data import, schema migration, and

data migration.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 Manual secondary index tables: Support for
DataStax Enterprise Challenges
secondary indexes is much less effective than in
DataStax Enterprise has a number of features that
YugabyteDB, as secondary indexes are stored locally
can assist with productivity, including real-time
and require reads from every node in the cluster. As
data processing, high scalability, support for
DataStax Enterprise documentation notes,
multiple data models, and mature monitoring and
“secondary indexes are tricky to use and can impact
management. Compared to the restrictions of
performance greatly.” DataStax Enterprise requires
legacy databases, DataStax Enterprise aims to
secondary index tables to be explicitly handled by
help organizations streamline their operations,
the Application layer
increase efficiency, and optimize their workflows. 

However, there are several challenges that users Hard to manage at scale: The DataStax Enterprise

report can negatively impact their organizational OpsCenter has challenges when monitoring larger

productivity: clusters and requires manual effort and support

intervention. OpsCenter was primarily designed to be

Expensive data modeling: When migrating to a dashboard for monitoring and cluster lifecycle

DataStax Enterprise, customers need to invest management, and was bolted on later hence the

more in redesigning their data model as this is cluster management challenges. This greatly brings

critical to system stability (including indexes, down operational productivity.

partitions, etc.). Users need to carefully consider

data access patterns and partition keys to DataStax Enterprise

ensure that their data is distributed and queried

Users Identifies Challenge
efficiently before deploying. Also, modifying a
of Data Modeling
data model once deployed is pretty

cumbersome. In addition, it’s also tough to get

Data modeling is very painful and

data out of DataStax Enterprise if you don’t

“ prevents us from having a model that

model it properly and you may require additional matches most of our use cases. We

third-party tools like Solr or Spark integration to have some tables as an index to help on

make it work. that issue. We tried Solr, but for a real-

time workload, it does not fit. The

configuration of a Solr index is still too

Indexing and querying challenges: Like
complex (too many settings and tricks),
Cassandra, DataStax Enterprise provides high
it should be possible to declare it with a
performance when reading or writing data from a
single instruction. We use Spark on
data model specifically designed for the
Cassandra nodes (with the building
operation. However, adding a query to help with
option). At the beginning, it was the
a new business need or question is complex and
easy choice, but now we think that it
time-consuming. The lack of support for joins
could be a mistake to mix application
and subqueries can make it difficult to perform
workload and Spark workload with the
certain types of data analysis. DataStax
same servers. Datastax recommends

Enterprise also has indexing and querying using a dedicated DC for Spark, but that

limitations, such as the non-availability of mixed comes with an extra cost for new

indexes, a requirement of manual triggering servers and data stay licenses.

when adding nodes before indexes are built for

(Source: Gartner Peer Insight, VP Engineering, 2023)
the first time, and architectural changes needed

due to index limitations like the mixed index.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

RESILIENCY

We live in a world where customers require instant access to information and data. Businesses

are expected to deliver 24x7x365 services that are always available to customers, wherever

and whenever they are in the world. The data behind those apps has become the lifeblood of

these modern organizations.

However, cloud failures and outages are becoming normal. Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen

a major cloud outage occur, on average, every 50 days. As we continue to see regular major

cloud failures, just “moving to the cloud” is not a good enough strategy for high availability.

Organizations need to evaluate the backbone of their data, their database, to ensure they can

meet customers’ demands with minimal performance impact if something goes down.

NoSQL saw major growth 10+ years ago because it delivered a distributed architecture that

provided native resiliency and security—something not easily accomplished with traditional,

monolithic relational databases. With distributed SQL databases, like YugabyteDB, that is no

longer true. Organizations can now get relational capabilities with the resilience and availability

needed for today’s cloud-native, transactional applications. 

Both YugabyteDB and DataStax Enterprise are known for providing a distributed, highly-

available database that can survive a wide variety of failures. If availability is your primary

requirement, then both systems can address that need. However, the newer architecture of

YugabyteDB provides additional advantages that might be important to your organization when

evaluating overall resiliency and availability.

YugabyteDB: DSE:

YugabyteDB Resiliency Advantages

As a distributed database, YugabyteDB’s core architecture ensures fault tolerance, partition

tolerance, continuous availability, and disaster recovery. These resiliency benefits position

YugabyteDB as a great choice for organizations requiring the capabilities of a relational

database with the resilience and availability of NoSQL. 

As you examine which database solution works best for your use cases, YugabyteDB’s

architecture provides some key differences compared to DataStax Enterprise. These features

can help you stay resilient by enabling you to:

Ensure consistent data for geo-distributed users: YugabyteDB is inherently geo-distributed

and allows organizations to access data locally with confidence. Users do not need to worry

about losing transactions or reading stale data, which can happen in the eventually consistent

model of NoSQL. YugabyteDB prioritizes data consistency, so even during failures, any data

read will be the most current. This is a key requirement for true System of Record applications.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 Deliver consistent backups and restores: YugabyteDB supports fully consistent

backups and restores, scheduled incremental backups, and point-in-time

recovery to the millisecond. Data backups can be taken numerous times daily

without impacting performance, allowing recovery from even the most serious

crashes in minutes, even for critical transactional applications

Rolling upgrades with zero downtime: Yugabyte sets high standards for data

Major Retailer retention and performance when the cloud provider whose service YugabyteDB

is running on suffers a zone outage. YugabyteDB is designed to deliver a

Shrugs Off

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 0 (meaning no data loss will occur during
4-Day Azure
failures) and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of ~3 seconds. i.e. to recover and

Outage with resume operations from the new zone. YugabyteDB also performs rolling

maintenance, patching, and upgrades on multi-node clusters with zero

YugabyteDB
downtime.

A global retail leader that Simplified App Development: Resiliency and consistency are powered by the

runs its product catalog distributed data layer, meaning developers do not need to worry about resolving

on YugabyteDB powered availability and consistency issues in the app. As a result, app development is

easier but also ensures that data and applications are protected completely
through a major winter

without risking human error or issues at the application layer.

storm that brought down

an entire Azure region for

DataStax Enterprise Challenges
over four days. Thanks to

multi-region replication, DataStax Enterprise provides a masterless architecture for zero downtime to help

the retailer only faced a meet strict enterprise availability requirements. Organizations can maintain

uninterrupted services even during unexpected outages or disasters, ensuring that

few seconds of delay
they can continue to operate and meet the needs of their customers. Within the
when the other region
CAP theorem, Cassandra prioritizes availability, ensuring nodes will always
took over, and they had
respond to requests, even if it means the data is not accurate. 

zero data loss and no

impact on their However, there are some challenges to be aware of that might negatively impact

customers. Data and your application resiliency and user experience:

traffic were automatically

rebalanced to the other Stale reads or data loss: The high availability in DataStax Enterprise relies on

region in just three replication to ensure data availability. However, the replication can introduce

seconds. Meanwhile,
I
data consistency issues if not properly managed. f there is a delay in

replication, a read operation on a replica node may return stale data or lose
their legacy databases
data if a failure happens before new data can be replicated
were offline for days,

with their team working

Demanding backup and restore operations: The local backup (snapshot)
around the clock for days
process in DataStax Enterprise demands a non-trivial amount of disk space.
to correct the issue and
DataStax currently does not support hot backup capabilities and needs to
bring everything back
improve the ease of backup. OpsCenter provides a fairly simple restore
online.
process up to a certain scale, but if you have too many backups, it can run into

challenges restoring the data.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

EFFICIENCY

From born-in-the-cloud FinTech, Retail, and Telco companies, to large, entrenched leaders,

businesses across all industries face increased competition. To be successful, organizations are

searching for ways to increase profitability by reducing legacy costs and shifting valuable

resources to growth initiatives. 

Flexibility and operational efficiency are critical to this process, with many organizations

offloading day-to-day management tasks in favor of as-a-service offerings. Organizations are

also investing in strategic initiatives to finally abandon legacy, “status quo” IT solutions (and

their high costs) in search of modern and often open-source solutions. At the same time, there

is a heightened focus on helping developers to focus on high-impact initiatives.

YugabyteDB and DataStax Enterprise, both have several advantages over monolithic databases

like Oracle and DB2. However, DataStax Enterprise is still limited by many of the core challenges

and limitations of Apache Cassandra. Built by some of the original Facebook architects that built

Cassandra, YugabyteDB introduces a new architecture, one that builds on the lessons of

Cassandra and addresses many of its gaps, especially around overall efficiency. 

When comparing the two databases, YugabyteDB stands out as delivering significant

advantages across a few key areas of efficiency, including scaling complexity, hardware costs,

and resource efficiency.

YugabyteDB: DSE:

YugabyteDB Efficiency Advantages

Applications can achieve efficiency with YugabyteDB by leveraging its high-performance

capabilities, scalability, consistency, and multi-cloud support. With YugabyteDB, applications

can process more transactions in less time, handle large volumes of data, reduce costs, and

ensure that data is secure, and compliant with regulatory requirements. 

YugabyteDB helps you drive database and application efficiencies with:

Fast scalability and node additions: YugabyteDB can scale applications within hours, even in

large clusters. The same operation can sometimes take days for large clusters and

applications deployed on Cassandra-based environments. A new node can be bootstrapped

quickly by copying already compressed data files from the leader of the corresponding shard,

versus the complex and time-consuming process of Cassandra. Clusters can also be easily

expanded with new or bigger nodes without requiring downtime

Reduction in manual tasks: The underlying distributed storage layer of YugabyteDB

eliminates many manual tasks common with Cassandra and other legacy databases.

YugabyteDB automatically splits large partitions, saving days of manual effort for a DBA.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 Resource efficient transactions: In Apache Cassandra, basic read-modify-write

operations (also known as compare-and-set) use a scheme known as lightweight

transactions, which incurs a four-round-trip cost between replicas. With

YugabyteDB, these operations only involve one round trip between the quorum

members

Enhanced compaction management: YugabyteDB breaks down compactions

GM Sees 10x into major and minor compactions and schedules them in different queues and

Improvement in with different priorities. This guarantees a certain quality of service to the

smaller, critical compactions, keeping the impact of background compactions on

App Processing
the user application to a minimum
Time

Efficient self-service and automation capabilities: YugabyteDB Anywhere

capabilities like self-service deployments & Day 2 automation capabilities,

GM runs one of its most
including rolling upgrades, data backup/restore built-in monitoring, and
critical connected

vehicle applications on automated health checks, all contribute to these efficiencies.

YugabyteDB where they

process 3 million
DataStax Enterprise Challenges
messages a second and

improved app processing For smaller environments or focused use cases, many of the mature and proven
time by 10x. The Vehicle
capabilities of DataStax Enterprise are a good fit, especially when the efficiency
Data Factory (VDF)
impact on resource utilization, hardware costs, and operational efficiencies are
application ingests data
less important. However, many organizations have seen their applications explode
from over 20M
in size and usage over the years, and are now focusing more on overall efficiency
connected vehicles,
and exploring other options. 

which means they need a

truly high performant

For these companies, there are some key efficiencies challenges with DataStax
database. GM previously
Enterprise that they want to eliminate, including the following:
ran the application on

Cassandra, which

provided great Repeated duplication of data: One of the common approaches within a
availability but failed to
Cassandra-based environment is to make a new copy of the data to avoid
deliver the scalability and
changes or impact on the first copy. For multi-region environments, DataStax
performance needed for
Enterprise replicates the data completely in each region with multiple copies per
a fast-growing
region. If you have a replication factor of three, then three copies of the data will
application. The team

performed extensive exist in each region —consuming lots of resources and impacting overall
testing on YugabyteDB, efficiency. If you want to introduce a new query, then usually the table is copied,

pushing it to the edge

a new data model is applied, and you have to manage another replica.  
and stretching the

performance. In the end,

High compaction overhead: On average, YugabyteDB only requires about 20%
they were able to deploy
overhead to handle compactions. DataStax Enterprise requires over double that,
YugabyteDB into

production within their with 50% being the standard overhead recommended. In addition, as node
desired timeframe and density increases on DataStax Enterprise, performance is impacted more during

are positioned to support garbage collection and compaction tasks. A major source of slowdown in
their future wave of
DataStax Enterprise is background compactions. As organizations try to increase
vehicles, which continue
space efficiency, they face more and more performance issues.
to generate more data

and a higher frequency.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Slow scaling and upgrades: Expansions and High Read Latency: Within a DataStax Enterprise

upgrades are operationally challenging in environment, anti-entropy, read-repairs, and

DataStax Enterprise and can take several hours additional operations regularly hurt performance.

to days, depending on the volume of data stored.

Read operations need to read from quorum to
Scalable applications with a high data growth
limit issues with data consistency. As a result, a
rate will warrant frequent cluster expansions and
replication factor of three means you may have a
add significant operational overhead to a
third of the throughput.
DataStax Enterprise environment. Adding a node

in DataStax Enterprise requires a logical read

Slow garbage collection: In Java-based NoSQL,
(i.e., a quorum read) across multiple surviving
long garbage collection (GC) pause is a 

peers to bootstrap a new node. All of these
well-known issue.
reads must uncompress and recompress the

data. Users report having to keep change control

windows open for days while waiting for a new

node to be added, balanced, and ready to go.  

DataStax Enterprise Discuss 


Performance and Operational Challenges

There can be inconsistency with read/write performance, especially when maintenance operations

“ occur. We get far more timeouts than expected from the platform, and though the software

handles the case, our performance metrics and SLA gets impacted accordingly.

(Gartner Peer Insight, Chief Architect)

We underestimated the operational overhead of setting up and managing a DSE cluster. There are

“ a number of 3rd parties that offer cloud and on-premise managed services for DSE, and in

hindsight, we should have utilized these services far earlier.

(Gartner Peer Insight, T l

echnica Architect)

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

SECURITY

Companies need to build a trusted data environment with robust data security and privacy while

also governing data policies for ongoing compliance. To achieve this, it is essential that

customers choose databases that have uncompromising security, with core security features

built in from the start making it easy and seamless to enable. Customers look to harden security,

achieve compliance, and mitigate risks before moving their applications and data to the cloud.

YugabyteDB and DataStax Enterprise both recognize the importance of security. Both have a

strong security focus that spans product development to certifications and ongoing security

testing. DataStax Enterprise delivers a number of security enhancements on top of Apache

Cassandra, while YugabyteDB has taken advantage of building a secure, distributed storage

layer to help deliver advanced capabilities. 

Despite DataStax Enterprise being in the market for longer, we feel both solutions are focused

on security. There are some differences in what they deliver, so you’ll need to decide if certain

security aspects are more important to you than others. Because of the close ratings for both of

these, below we highlight some of the key features for each and recommend you do further

research and determine which aligns to your priorities best.

YugabyteDB: DSE:

YugabyteDB Security Features

Security was a key design principle for YugabyteDB, and the database offers an end-to-end

encryption, RBAC, authentication, authorization, audit logging, SSL/TLS, network security, and

more. These features help ensure that data is protected from unauthorized access, reducing the

risk of data breaches and other security threats. Applications that require high levels of security,

such as healthcare and financial applications, can benefit greatly from YugabyteDB's security

features.

Certifications: ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, and GDP

End-to-end security focus: YugabyteDB leverages a holistic approach to security. The

product design approach is consistent with the SD3+C (Secure by Design, Secure by Default,

Secure in Deployment and Communication) development methodology and spans all

deployment options for YugabyteDB: YugabyteDB (OSS), YugabyteDB Anywhere, and

YugabyteDB Managed.

Native geo-partitioning: Modern policy controls limit user privileges and pin data to specific

regions, which is a requirement for meeting certain regulations like GDPR

KMS choice: YugabyteDB supports an expanded choice of Key Management Services (KMS)

for developers that include Google and Azure in addition to HashiCorp Vault and AWS KMS.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 Periodic credential rotation: Credentials are rotated every few months, not

every year (or more), making your applications highly secure

Granular security: Row and column-level security. Note: row-level security is

available for YSQL but not currently available for YCQL (Cassandra-compatible

API).

Zero downtime maintenance: YugabyteDB performs rolling maintenance,

Narvar Meets patching, and upgrades on multi-node clusters with zero downtime. Patches to

Compliance fix common vulnerabilities and exposure (CVE) take no time to deploy. Operating

system software version upgrades and database software upgrades can be

Requirements
carried out without downtime.
with

Geo-Distribution

Narvar, a trusted provider

of personalized services

to over 800 retailers

around the world, faced

the ever-changing

requirements from
DataStax Enterprise Security Features
various countries on data

Applications can achieve security with DataStax Enterprise's database

security and compliance.
management software by leveraging its encryption, RBAC, audit logging,
With YugabyteDB, they
authentication, authorization, and compliance features. These features help ensure

leveraged the native that data is protected from unauthorized access, reducing the risk of data

breaches and other security threats.

geo-partitioning

capabilities to easily
f
Certi ications: DataStax supports a set of compliance, regulations, and
meet various
certifications including PCI, SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, and GDPR
requirements. The native

geo-partitioning Adherence to GDPR compliance: DataStax aligns GDPR compliance with

hybrid cloud needs

capabilities made it easy

to keep their retail

Support for Key Management Service: DataStax supports third-party KMS
customers' user data
support and BYO K (Bring Your Own Keys)
pinned to a specific

region or country.  Granular security: Row and column-level security. DSE adds row-level access

control (RLAC), which is unavailable in normal Apache Cassandra.

Geo-partitionin g: Can be achieved using DataStax Enterprise Graph (DSE

Graph) database.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

SAVINGS

While the technical capabilities of a database and the business outcomes they can drive are

often analyzed first when researching a new database, in today’s economic environment, it’s

important to quickly analyze overall costs and prioritize solutions that can lead to meaningful

savings. 

To successfully increase profitability, organizations need to find ways to lower costs, such as

reducing expensive legacy database licenses or removing less efficient solutions. Ultimately,

you should prioritize solutions that help you shift finite budgets for hardware, software, and

people to higher-impact, value-added initiatives. This means moving away from legacy

databases that have been in use for 10+ years, as newer solutions, like distributed SQL

databases, provide a number of cost savings—in terms of the license and required hardware

costs—and overall efficiency savings.

Here, we completed an in-depth analysis of the costs of both YugabyteDB and DataStax

Enterprise using a sample scenario that closely aligns with a real-world customer workload we

recently helped support. As a result of significant hardware savings and lower overall license

costs, YugabyteDB resulted in over 2x savings in licensing and infrastructure costs alone. Below

is a summary of the highlights of the savings that companies can achieve with YugabyteDB. You

can also review a more detailed analysis in Appendix A.

YugabyteDB: DSE:

YugabyteDB Savings Advantages

Organizations can achieve cost savings with YugabyteDB by leveraging its lower license costs 

(free for the OSS version), high data density, built-in automation, and easy management

features. These features help companies avoid the high costs of proprietary software, expensive

hardware, downtime, and manual database management. 

In the detailed cost comparison outlined in Appendix A, the following areas were the primary

reason that YugabyteDB achieved over 2x savings compared to DataStax Enterprise:

License cost savings: Software licensing costs for YugabyteDB Anywhere are far less than

legacy databases, with a list price over 80% less than DataStax Enterprise. As well as lower

pricing, YugabyteDB includes all core database features without additional fees. In fact, all core

database features are available for free in the open-source (OSS) version of YugabyteDB. The

licensed version of YugabyteDB Anywhere provides advanced management and automation

capabilities, along with 24x7 support, to assist with enterprise deployments at scale.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 High data density: YugabyteDB supports higher data density per node while still

delivering the necessary performance with high throughput and low latency.

DataStax Enterprise can handle around one to two TB per node (and sometimes

less), while YugabyteDB supports five to 10 (or more) TB per node for. most use

cases. This means that YugabyteDB's data density greatly reduces your

hardware footprint, lowering upfront hardware costs and lower operating costs

over time.

Infrastructure cost savings: The infrastructure costs of YugabyteDB versus

SaaS Retail DataStax Enterprise are far less, coming in at over 60% less in our example

Partner outlined in Appendix A. YugabyteDB helps drastically reduce these costs thanks

to much higher data density per server. Cost savings are also realized during
Reduces TCO
hardware refresh cycles. Customers can use inexpensive commodity hardware
by 4x with without the need for specialized vendor hardware, an in-customer data-center,

YugabyteDB or the public cloud using any form factor (VMs, Containers/K8s, Bare-Metal)

Consolidation savings: YugabyteDB supports a diverse set of workloads thanks

Narvar was one of many
to its multi-API support, with PostgreSQL and Cassandra-compatible APIs. Users

organizations that saw have the opportunity to reduce database sprawl, consolidate their apps on fewer

their cloud costs rise to databases, and greatly reduce operational complexity.

unexpected levels due to

Labor efficient operations: The automation and simplicity in YugabyteDB

the highly variable and
Anywhere help to reduce the ratio of operations personnel to developers.
throughput-based
Customers are able to achieve ratios in the order of 1 operator to 100 developers.
pricing of their public

cloud database. They

Improved organizational profitability: With high availability and resiliency

had used the Amazon

features built into YugabyteDB, revenue loss due to downtime can be eliminated.

DynamoDB database As a result, organizations can preserve their top-line revenue, so the bottom line

earlier but due to rising (profit) stays high

costs as a result of their

business growth,

especially around the

peak retail seasons, they

had to rethink their

database modernization

strategy. Narvar made

the decision to switch to

YugabyteDB and as a

result, achieved 4x lower

TCO, gaining scale and

performance, all while

avoiding cloud lock-in.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

DataStax Savings Challenges

DataStax Enterprise delivers a number of key enhancements and features to Apache Cassandra, however,

those additional features come at a cost. In addition, some of the issues that result in higher costs for

Cassandra deployments, like low data density, mean DSE users can face higher costs due to the need for larger

clusters and more storage. 

Companies can achieve cost savings with DataStax Enterprise by leveraging its scalabidata center-native

architecture, lack of vendor lock-in, high availability, operational efficiency, and advanced analytics features.

However, some challenges with DataStax Enterprise increase costs for companies, including:

High infrastructure costs: The low data density Cost of eventual consistency: The eventual

of DataStax Enterprise, usually at most 1 - 2 TB consistency of DataStax Enterprise means there

per node, results in a cluster size that can be 5x is a possibility of inconsistent data in any replica.

or larger than that required for supporting the To address this, DataStax Enterprise uses Read

same size workload with YugabyteDB.   Repair and Anti-entropy maintenance processes

- expensive and resource-intensive operations

High hardware refresh costs: Given the larger that slow down apps.

cluster size needed for DataStax Enterprise,

costs to refresh and update the cluster are High Storage costs: Usable storage per node in

significant. Scaling times are also higher, resulting Cassandra is about 50% because of compaction

in high refresh operating costs. overheads, further driving up storage costs

High Operator-to-Developer ratio: The operator- High License Costs: The DataStax Enterprise list

to-developer ratio for DataStax Enterprise can be price is over 5x higher than YugabyteDB

over 2x that of YugabyteDB. Anywhere.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Conclusion

YugabyteDB Anywhere and DataStax Enterprise both deliver additional features and automation

on top of open-source databases (YugabyteDB and Apache Cassandra). By comparing these

two offerings using the PRESS framework, we’ve focused on how the modern, distributed SQL

database architecture of YugabyteDB provides a number of advantages when it comes to

productivity, resiliency, efficiency, security, and savings. Some of the well-known challenges

with Cassandra result in similar challenges for DataStax Enterprise users.

Our Total Cost of Ownership analysis showed that a DataStax Enterprise environment is 2.2

times more expensive than YugabyteDB Anywhere for the same workload under consideration.

Cost savings are a direct result of lower license costs and huge savings in hardware costs, both

upfront and ongoing maintenance, thanks to the much higher data density per node possible

with YugabyteDB.

For organizations considering DataStax Enterprise, we have found that in most cases

YugabyteDB Anywhere can actually offer a better Cassandra experience with strong

consistency and better TCO than achievable with DataStax Enterprise due to the challenges it

inherits from its Apache Cassandra foundation.

Our PRESS analysis provides key areas for you to consider when evaluating your next database

modernization initiative. In addition to the points we have addressed, it’s also important that you

research the additional capabilities and benefits a distributed SQL database, like YugabyteDB, can

provide, in addition to the specific advantages over DataStax Enterprise we’ve covered here. 

We invite you to learn more about YugabyteDB and also consider whether a self-managed

DBaas offering like YugabyteDB Anywhere, aligns more closely with your needs. You can get

started by signing up for a free trial (or) request a demo to learn more.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Appendix A:

Detailed TCO Analysis

Below are additional details for comparing the TCO of YugabyteDB
Anywhere to DataStax Enterprise. Every application will have
slightly different requirements, so use the below model as a
general guide that can be adjusted based on your specific needs. 

For the real-world scenario modeled below, a YugabyteDB

Anywhere environment provides a 2.3x better TCO compared to
DataStax Enterprise.

Section I: Assumptions and Modeled Scenario

To compare the TCO of YugabyteDB Anywhere and DataStax
Enterprise, we chose a specific scenario that closely models that
of a real-world customer comparing the two database solutions.
For the TCO analysis, we modeled a multi-region, synchronous
deployment with the following assumptions for our calculation:

Total database size = 20 T

Deployment spans across 3 regions for 

high availability and disaster recover
Replication Factor (RF) = 3
Number of tables = 3
Number of indexes =
Number of reads/unit = 30,000 reads per second
Number writes/unit - 10,000 writes per secon
Average size of read = 32 K
Average size of write = 4 K
The per-hour labor cost of a DBA employed full-time is
assumed to be 51.75 USD per hour

Infrastructure costs

For the infrastructure cost calculations, we use M5.4x large AWS

EC2 instances for both YugabyteDB Anywhere and DataStax
Enterprise. We assume constant availability and usage of
dedicated M5.4x instances that are 16 cores/node and 64+ GB
Memory/node with 15 Gigabit network performance on Linux OSes.
The instances are reserved for a period of 1 year and 3 years,
respectively, for the 1-year and 3-year TCO calculations, with all
payments upfront to AWS to optimize for costs.

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Section II: Required Configuration

YugabyteDB Anywhere Configuration

For the architecture under consideration with a 20 TB database, YugabyteDB Anywhere

(YBA) is configured to be spread across 3 clusters. Based on the model scenario we are

using, the nodes for YBA need a total of 144 cores and 576 GB of memory. YBA has a low

compaction overhead of 20%, and we’ll assume an optimal data density of 8TB per node. We

have allocated 1 DB Admin FTE for managing the DB infrastructure and DB operations.

YBA nodes calculation

Number of YBA nodes = ((Raw Data * ( 1 + Compaction overhead%)* RF)/Data Density)/

Clusters)*Clusters

Number of YBA nodes = ((((20* (1+ 20%)*3)/8)/3)*3)

Number of YBA nodes = 9 nodes

YBA total dis k space calculation

YBA Total disk needed = (Raw Data (1+ Compaction overhead) RF)*No of Datacenters

YBA Total disk needed = (20(1+20%)*3)* 1

YBA Total disk needed = 72 TB of disk space

DataStax Enterprise Configuration

For the architecture under consideration with a 20 TB database, the DataStax Enterprise (DSE)

deployment spans across two clusters in two data centers. The nodes need 640 cores and

2,560 GB of memory. DSE has a high compaction overhead of 100% and a low data density. For

this calculation, we use 3TB per node. We have allocated 2 DB Admin FTE for managing the DB

infrastructure and DB operations, as there are significantly more nodes, disk storage,

infrastructure, and hardware refreshes to manage compared to YugabyteDB Anywhere.

DSE nodes calculation

Number of DSE nodes = ((Raw Data * ( 1 + Compaction overhead%)* RF)/Data Density)/

Clusters)*Clusters

Number of DSE nodes = ((((20*(1+100%)*3)/3)/2)* 2

Number of DSE nodes = 40 DSE nodes

DSE total dis k space calculation

DSE Total disk needed = (Raw Data (1+ Compaction overhead) RF)* Number of Datacenters

DSE Total disk needed = (20 (1+100%)*3)* 2

DSE Total disk needed = 240 TB of disk space

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

Section III: License Costs

The license cost data for YugabyteDB Anywhere, and DataStax Enterprise includes software

license costs per core/node for 1-year or 3-years. Non-production license costs are included in

all options, providing a basis for comparing the direct license costs of both databases.

License Costs (DIRECT) YBA - 1 Year YBA - 3 Years DSE - 1 Year DSE - 3 Year

Total License Cost per year

$ 259,200.00
$ 777,600.00
$ 380,000.00
$ 1,140,000.00

Non-prod license costs Included Included Included Included

Total License Costs (Direct) $ 259,200.00 $ 777,600.00 $ 380,000.00 $ 1,140,000.00

Section IV: Infrastructure costs

The infrastructure cost data includes a breakdown of direct costs for both YugabyteDB

Anywhere and DataStax Enterprise over 1 year and 3 years. Costs include compute costs,

DBA costs, storage, snapshot space, backup storage costs, AWS data transfer costs, and

KMS costs. 

The total infrastructure costs provide a basis for comparing the overall infrastructure costs of

both databases based on the workload and infrastructure requirements under consideration.

Infrastructure Costs
YBA - 1 Year YBA - 3 Years DSE - 1 Year DSE - 3 Year
(DIRECT)

Compute - Cloud VM total

upfront costs (Reservation $ 39,240.00

$ 79,200.00
$ 174,400.00
$ 352,000.00

instances (upfront costs))

Compute - Normalized

reserved instances (Total $ 52,560.00

$ 157,680.00
$ 52,560.00
$ 157,680.00

cost over 1 or 3 years)

Compute - Cloud VM total

$ 91,800.00 $ 236,880.00 $ 226,960.00 $ 509,680.00
costs (EC2 M5.4X large)

DBA costs for maintaining

$ 99,360.00 $ 298,080.00 $ 198,720.00 $ 596,160.00
the infrastructure

SSD volumes gp3 


5.00
5.00
15.00
15.00

(Rounded to whole instances)

Average duration


each instance runs 
 730.00 730.00 730.00 730.00

(Hours per month)

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

 Infrastructure Costs 


(DIRECT)
YBA - 1 Year YBA - 3 Years DSE - 1 Year DSE - 3 Year

Provisioning iOPS per volume

16,000.00
16,000.00
16,000.00
16,000.00

Snapshot frequency (Daily)

4x
4x
4x
4x

General Purpose SSD (gp3) -

1000 MB/s per 1000 MB/s per 1000 MB/s per 1000 MB/s per
Throughput

volume
volume
volume
volume

Amount changed per snapshot 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

(TB)

EBS Storage Cost

$ 6,553.60
$ 6,553.60
$ 19,660.80
$ 19,660.80

EBS IOPS Cost

$ 325.00
$ 325.00
$ 975.00
$ 975.00

EBS gp3 Throughput cost

$ 175.00
$ 175.00
$ 525.00
$ 525.00

EBS Snapshot Cost $ 19,541.76 $ 19,541.76 $ 58,625.28 $ 58,625.28

General purpose SSD Storage -

EBS monthly cost

$ 26,595.3 6
$ 26,595.3 6
$ 79,786.0 8
$ 79,786.0 8

$ 319,144.32
$ 957,432.96
$ 957,432.96
$ 2,872,298.88

General purpose SSD Storage -

EBS Annual cost

Backup storage - S3 Standard -

$ 1,673.2 2
$ 1,673.2 2
$ 5,457.9 2
$ 5,457.9 2

monthly

Backup storage - S3 Standard -

$ 20,078.64
$ 60,235.92
$ 65,495.04
$ 196,485.12

annual

Total Storage costs


$ 339,222.96 $ 1,017,668.88 $ 1,022,928.00 $ 3,068,784.00
( Storage + Backup)

AWS Data Transfer - Inbound

data transfer (TB/month) (10 TB 20 T B
20 T B
20 T B
20 T B

is good / same for OS C and YBA)

AWS Data Transfer - Intra-region 20 T B

20 T B
20 T B
20 T B

data transfer (TB/month)

WS Data Transfer - Outbound

B
B
B
B

A
20 T 20 T 20 T 20 T
data transfer (TB/month)

Network data transfer (Regional

data transfer) - AWS Data 

$ 1,024.0 0

$ 1,024.0 0

$ 1,024.0 0

$ 1,024.0 0


transfer - monthly costs

Network data transfer 


i
(Reg onal data transfer) - A WS $ 12,288.00 $ 36,864.00 $ 12,288.00 $ 36,864.00
Data transfer - annual costs

KMS - no of unique keys 20 20 20 20

Total Value Analysis: DataStax

License Costs (DIRECT) YBA - 1 Year YBA - 3 Years DSE - 1 Year DSE - 3 Year

KMS - no of symmetric 

requests
2000000 2000000 2000000 2000000

KMS - Total Monthly cost

$ 26.00
$ 26.00
$ 26.00
$ 26.00

KMS - Total Annual cost $ 312.00 $ 312.00 $ 312.00 $ 312.00

Total Infrastructure costs

$ 542,982.96 $ 1,589,804.88 $ 1,461,208.00 $ 4,211,800.00
(Direct)

Total Costs $ 802,182.96 $ 2,367,404.88 $ 1,841,208.00 $ 5,351,800.00

About Yugabyte, Inc.

Yugabyte was founded in 2016 by former Facebook and Oracle engineers with decades of
experience building business-critical database systems and operating them in production.

The company was named a 2020 Cool Vendor by Gartner and is backed by Sapphire Ventures,
Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, 8VC, Wipro Ventures, and others.

Get In Touch