head to head · open source
rocksdb vs cassandra
rocksdb has 32,240 GitHub stars, 7,008 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cassandra has 10,134 stars, 4,072 forks, 529 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rocksdb leads on adoption by 218% (32,240 vs 10,134 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 40%. 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 | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.0K | ⑂ 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: A Persistent Key Value Store for Flash and RAM Storage RocksDB is developed and maintained by Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is built on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat (sanjay@google.com) and Jeff Dean (jeff@google.com) This code is a library that forms the core building block for a fast key value server, especially suited for storing data on flash drives. It has a Log Structured Merge Database (LSM) design with flexible tradeoffs between Write Amplification Factor (WAF), Read Amplification Factor (RAF) and Space Amplification Factor (SAF). It has multi threaded compactions, making…
read the full rocksdb overview →
About cassandra
image: link= image: Status, link= image: Downloads, link= image: Pulls, link= image: link= image: link= image: link= image: link= Apache Cassandra Apache Cassandra is a highly scalable partitioned row store. Rows are organized into tables with a required primary key. means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster. store] means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of…
read the full cassandra overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rocksdb or cassandra more popular?
rocksdb has 32,240 GitHub stars and cassandra has 10,134. 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 (32,240 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.