head to head · open source
rocksdb vs cassandra
rocksdb has 32,114 GitHub stars, 6,933 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cassandra has 10,100 stars, 4,118 forks, 529 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rocksdb leads on adoption by 218% (32,114 vs 10,100 stars). rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0; cassandra is written in Java under Apache-2.0. rocksdb has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, cassandra 41%. rocksdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| rocksdb | cassandra | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 10K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 4.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rocksdb if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cassandra if
- You want the cassandra feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and cassandra fits your workflow better
About rocksdb
RocksDB is an embeddable, persistent key value store written in C++ and developed by the Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is a library rather than a standalone server, and it forms the core building block for a fast key value server. The project builds on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat and Jeff Dean, and it lives in the systems infrastructure and database ecosystem, carrying the topics database and storage engine. It has been public for roughly fourteen years and is dual licensed under GPLv2 and Apache 2.0, so a user may select either license at their option.
read the full rocksdb overview →
About cassandra
Apache Cassandra is an open source transactional distributed database written in Java and licensed under Apache 2.0, for users who need linear scalability and proven fault tolerance on commodity hardware or cloud infrastructure without compromising performance.
read the full cassandra overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rocksdb or cassandra more popular?
rocksdb has 32,114 GitHub stars and cassandra has 10,100. rocksdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are rocksdb and cassandra free?
Both are open source. rocksdb is licensed under GPL-2.0 and cassandra under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rocksdb and cassandra?
rocksdb is written in C++ and cassandra in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rocksdb or cassandra?
Choose rocksdb if you want the larger community (32,114 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose cassandra if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.