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Databases · head to head

Canary Labs vs Cassandra

Canary Labs logo

Canary Labs

Databases

Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees

From
$3000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Cassandra logo

Cassandra

Databases

Manage massive amounts of data with linear scalability

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Cassandra has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Canary Labs pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.; Cassandra no support for joins across tables
  • They diverge on capability: Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Cassandra covers Linear Scalability.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Canary Labs and Cassandra actually diverge.

Attributes where Canary Labs and Cassandra differ
AttributeCanary LabsCassandra
Starting price$3000/yearFree
Pricing modelPer tag band per yearUnknown
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWindows, WebLinux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes
FoundedUnknown2008

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Databases).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Canary Labs

  • Loss-less compression
  • Unlimited clients
  • Store and forward
  • Views service
  • Sparkplug B
  • Calculation engine
  • Axiom
  • ODBC and REST

Only in Cassandra

  • Linear Scalability
  • Fault Tolerance
  • Multi-datacenter Replication
  • Tunable Consistency
  • CQL Query Language
  • Distributed Architecture
  • No Single Point of Failure
  • DataStax

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Canary Labs

  • A manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a PI System enterprise agreementnot Cassandra
  • A water utility replacing SCADA-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next SCADA replacementnot Cassandra
  • An Ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboardsnot Cassandra
  • A plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an auditnot Cassandra

Cassandra

  • Real-time applicationsnot Canary Labs
  • Content managementnot Canary Labs
  • User profilesnot Canary Labs
  • Mobile backendsnot Canary Labs
  • Cachingnot Canary Labs

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Canary Labs

  • Pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.
  • CustomerCare at 18 percent of licence cost is effectively mandatory on perpetual licences because lapsing it removes upgrades, so the perpetual option is not really a one-time cost.
  • The storage format is proprietary; getting data out at volume means the ODBC connector, an additional 2,500 USD one-time or 1,000 USD a year, or writing against the REST API.
  • Canary is a small vendor with a limited partner network outside North America, so support coverage and integrator availability in Europe and Asia are thinner than for AVEVA or Ignition.
  • It is a Windows-only server product with no Linux or container deployment, which complicates placing collectors in modern edge estates.

Cassandra

  • No support for joins across tables
  • No ACID transactions across multiple rows
  • Data model must be designed around query patterns upfront, making schema evolution difficult
  • Partition key misconfigurations can cause uneven data distribution and hotspots that degrade performance

Pricing, plan by plan

Canary Labs

$3000/year
  • Subscription, 3,500 tags$3000/year
    • Unlimited Axiom clients
    • Unlimited Excel clients
    • Support and upgrades included
  • Perpetual, 3,500 tags$8730/one-time
    • 7,400 USD licence plus 1,330 USD first-year CustomerCare
    • CustomerCare renews at 18 percent of licence cost per year
    • Unlimited clients
  • Private cloud, 3,500 tags$12320/year
    • Hosted by Canary
    • 1,500 USD one-time setup fee per system
    • Scales to around 58,684 USD per year at 60,000 tags
  • Enterprise unlimited$undefined/year
    • Unlimited tags
    • Negotiated licensing terms
    • Quoted pricing

Cassandra

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Cassandra review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Canary Labs if

  • You need loss-less compression.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want unlimited clients.
Canary Labs review

Choose Cassandra if

  • You need linear scalability.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want fault tolerance.
Cassandra review

Questions people ask

Is Canary Labs or Cassandra better?
Neither clearly leads. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year and Cassandra at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Canary Labs or Cassandra?
Cassandra has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3000/year for Canary Labs and Free for Cassandra.
Does Canary Labs or Cassandra run on more platforms?
Canary Labs runs on Windows, Web. Cassandra runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
Can I use Cassandra for free?
Yes. Cassandra has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year.
What is Canary Labs best used for?
Canary Labs is most often used for a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement, a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement, an ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboards, a plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an audit. Of those, a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement and a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement are not what Cassandra is typically brought in for.
What can Canary Labs do that Cassandra cannot?
Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Unlimited clients, Store and forward, Views service. Cassandra covers Linear Scalability, Fault Tolerance, Multi-datacenter Replication, Tunable Consistency.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Canary Labs: What does Canary cost?

8,730 USD for a 3,500 tag perpetual system including first-year CustomerCare, or 3,000 USD a year on subscription.

Cassandra: Does Cassandra support joins between tables?

No. Cassandra does not support joins or foreign keys. The data model requires denormalization, meaning data must be duplicated across tables to support different query patterns.

Source
Canary Labs: Are client licences extra?

No. Unlimited Axiom browser clients and unlimited Excel clients are included on every tier.

Cassandra: Does Cassandra offer ACID transactions?

No. Cassandra provides only row-level atomicity and isolation, not full ACID transactions across multiple rows or tables. It uses lightweight transactions via Paxos for per-row compare-and-set operations.

Source
Canary Labs: Is perpetual cheaper than subscription?

Canary states perpetual pays off after roughly three years, and after that you still pay 18 percent CustomerCare annually.

Cassandra: What programming languages can connect to Cassandra?

Cassandra supports official drivers for multiple languages including Python, Java, Node.js, and Go, allowing applications to communicate via the native Cassandra protocol.

Source
Canary Labs: Does it use lossy compression?

No. Canary stores every collected value rather than approximating the trend, which matters for regulated data retention.

Cassandra: Can I deploy Cassandra in the cloud?

Yes. Cassandra can run on any cloud platform (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) via Docker, virtual machines, or managed services like DataStax Astra DB, which provides a fully managed DBaaS option.

Source
Cassandra: Does Cassandra have a free option?

The open source Apache Cassandra is free. DataStax also offers Astra DB with a free tier providing up to 25GB storage and 25 million read/write operations per month.

Source
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