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Databases · head to head

Cassandra vs RisingWave

Cassandra logo

Cassandra

Databases

Manage massive amounts of data with linear scalability

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
RisingWave logo

RisingWave

Databases

Streaming database that maintains incremental materialised views in SQL instead of Flink jobs

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Cassandra no support for joins across tables; RisingWave anything that does not fit SQL, such as custom windowing, complex event processing or heavy stateful logic, still needs Flink, so RisingWave often adds a system rather than removing one.
  • They diverge on capability: Cassandra covers Linear Scalability, RisingWave covers SQL materialised views.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cassandra and RisingWave actually diverge.

Attributes where Cassandra and RisingWave differ
AttributeCassandraRisingWave
Pricing modelUnknownPer RisingWave Unit hour
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, Docker, KubernetesLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud
Founded2008Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Cassandra

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

Only in RisingWave

  • SQL materialised views
  • Postgres wire compatibility
  • Object storage state
  • Source connectors
  • Sink connectors
  • Iceberg tables
  • Watermarks and windowing
  • User defined functions

What people use each for

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

Cassandra

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

RisingWave

  • A team with Kafka topics that needs continuously fresh aggregates for a dashboard without standing up a Flink clusternot Cassandra
  • A fraud or risk team maintaining rolling counters and joins across event streams expressed as SQL viewsnot Cassandra
  • A company doing Postgres CDC into a real-time denormalised view for search or servingnot Cassandra
  • An analytics group that wants streaming results landed directly into Apache Iceberg without a separate writer jobnot Cassandra

Where each one falls short

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

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

RisingWave

  • Anything that does not fit SQL, such as custom windowing, complex event processing or heavy stateful logic, still needs Flink, so RisingWave often adds a system rather than removing one.
  • The Apache 2.0 community edition excludes premium features behind a licence key, and which capabilities sit on which side of that line moves between releases, so a self-hosted plan can be invalidated by an upgrade.
  • Long-running materialised views accumulate state in object storage, and cost and recovery time grow with retention in ways that are hard to forecast before you are in production.
  • The Postgres compatibility is protocol level; it is not a transactional Postgres and using it as a general purpose database, with point updates or high write concurrency, goes badly.
  • It is a comparatively young venture-funded project competing with Flink, Materialize and warehouse-native streaming, and the ecosystem of connectors, operators and third-party expertise is much thinner.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cassandra

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Cassandra review.

RisingWave

Free
  • Community EditionFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence, self-hosted
    • Core streaming engine and connectors
    • Premium features excluded and require a licence key
  • Cloud Basic$0.227/hour
    • Billed per RisingWave Unit hour
    • Hosted on AWS, GCP or Azure
    • Capped at 64 cores
  • Cloud Pro$undefined/year
    • No core limit
    • Bring your own cloud option
    • Premium features included
  • Self-managed Enterprise$undefined/year
    • On premises or Kubernetes
    • Premium features unlocked by licence
    • Annual contract with SLA

Which should you pick?

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

Choose RisingWave if

  • You need sql materialised views.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want postgres wire compatibility.
RisingWave review

Questions people ask

Is Cassandra or RisingWave better?
Neither clearly leads. Cassandra starts at Free and RisingWave at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cassandra or RisingWave?
Cassandra starts at Free and RisingWave at Free.
Does Cassandra or RisingWave run on more platforms?
Cassandra runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes. RisingWave runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Cassandra for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Cassandra best used for?
Cassandra is most often used for real-time applications, content management, user profiles, mobile backends. Of those, real-time applications and content management are not what RisingWave is typically brought in for.
What can Cassandra do that RisingWave cannot?
Cassandra covers Linear Scalability, Fault Tolerance, Multi-datacenter Replication, Tunable Consistency. RisingWave covers SQL materialised views, Postgres wire compatibility, Object storage state, Source connectors.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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
RisingWave: Is RisingWave open source?

The community edition is Apache 2.0 and self-hostable, but a set of premium features requires a paid licence key.

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
RisingWave: What does the cloud cost?

It starts at 0.227 US dollars per RisingWave Unit hour on the Basic tier, which is capped at 64 cores.

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
RisingWave: Does it replace Flink?

For SQL-expressible transformations, often yes. For custom stateful processing and complex event handling, no.

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
RisingWave: Can I query it like Postgres?

Yes over the Postgres wire protocol, but it is an analytical streaming engine, not a transactional database.

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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