ScyllaDB

ScyllaDB is a NoSQL database sold by ScyllaDB Inc. as a drop-in alternative to Apache Cassandra and Amazon DynamoDB. It speaks the Cassandra query language (CQL) and also offers a DynamoDB-compatible API, so teams can point existing drivers at it. The vendor describes the engine as shard-per-core and lock-free, with one thread per CPU core, and says this lets a node serve millions of operations per second at single-digit millisecond P99 latency.

It targets workloads where tail latency and cost per node matter: feature stores, recommendation engines, messaging, and real-time AI retrieval. The database ships in several forms: ScyllaDB Cloud (managed on AWS and Google Cloud), ScyllaDB Enterprise (self-managed software), and a vector search feature for similarity queries. The vendor's own guidance is that it fits best for datasets above 1 TB per node, throughput above 100K operations per second, or strict P99 targets.

• Shard-per-core engine. Each CPU core runs its own shard with isolated memory and asynchronous I/O, so threads do not contend for locks. The vendor says this gives linear scaling as cores or nodes are added and keeps nodes small in number compared with Cassandra clusters.
• Tablets for elastic scaling. Data is split into small tablets that rebalance across the cluster while it runs. According to the vendor, this lets a cluster absorb traffic peaks without a full over-provisioned footprint, and it quotes 90 percent storage utilization as a design goal.
• Workload prioritization. Administrators assign shares of CPU and I/O to different workloads on one cluster. A latency-sensitive query path can then keep its response times while a batch analytics job runs next to it, instead of needing a second cluster.
• Cassandra and DynamoDB APIs. Applications can connect through CQL, using any driver that implements CQL binary protocol version 3, or through the Alternator DynamoDB-compatible API. ScyllaDB also publishes shard-aware drivers for C++, Java, Python, Go and Rust.
• Vector search. An integrated feature stores and queries high-dimensional embeddings next to operational data. The vendor positions it for similarity search and retrieval-augmented generation, and its product page cites support for more than a billion vectors.
• Change Data Capture. CDC logs every change made to a table so it can feed replication, migration or downstream consumers. The vendor lists drivers for Java, Go and Rust, plus a shard-aware Kafka connector for teams that already run Kafka or Confluent.
• Active-active replication. Clusters replicate across racks, availability zones and regions without extra components. The vendor says a deployment can survive node, rack or full-region failures, and that Professional and Premium cloud tiers include multi-region active-active setups.

• A platform team running a 100-node Cassandra cluster. The team wants fewer nodes and less manual tuning. It keeps its CQL data model and drivers, migrates with the vendor's Cassandra migration material, and checks whether smaller hardware meets its P99 targets before cutting over production traffic.
• An ML team serving a feature store. Online inference needs many small key lookups at steady latency. The team stores features in ScyllaDB, relies on tablets to follow daily traffic swings, and can later add vector search for embeddings without adding a separate database.
• A streaming or gaming company with global users. Session state, watch progress or player profiles need local reads in several regions. Active-active replication keeps copies in each region, and workload prioritization stops background jobs from slowing the interactive request path.

The vendor offers two free entry points. ScyllaDB X Cloud has a free trial with a three-node cluster of 4 vCPUs each, and the vendor states that no credit card is required. ScyllaDB Enterprise can be downloaded and, per the vendor, is free for up to 10 TB and 50 vCPUs across your clusters. Cloud clusters are created from the Cloud console, and the Terraform provider can manage them as code.

Teams coming from Cassandra or DynamoDB can reuse CQL drivers or the Alternator API, and the vendor links dedicated migration guides. ScyllaDB University offers free NoSQL courses. Expect a learning curve around partition and clustering key design, which the vendor says suits query-driven data models.

ScyllaDB moved its releases from AGPL to a source-available licence from Enterprise 2025.1, with the last AGPL release being 6.2. The cloud runs on AWS and GCP in Standard, Professional and Premium support tiers, all with a 99.9 percent uptime SLA.

The database management systems list places ScyllaDB 15 of 22: the products next to it are RavenDB above and Google Firestore below. From place 4 the established names follow in their ranked order; we publish no numeric score.

ScyllaDB is based in the United States; 15 of the 22 products here share its region, North America.

Vector search is listed as an integrated feature.

In the catalogue: Cloud tiers Standard, Professional, Premium via cost estimator; Enterprise licensed; free tier of the source-available release.

The vendor's pricing page shows three ScyllaDB Cloud tiers without printed amounts: Standard, Professional and Premium. Standard lists 8x5 support with a 2 hour P1 response; Professional lists 24x7 support with 1 hour P1 response, Bring Your Own Account and multi-region active-active; Premium lists 15 minute P1 response, Bring Your Own Encryption Key, Private Link networking and a dedicated technical account manager. Professional and Premium are marked Get a Quote. The page links a pricing calculator that estimates monthly Cloud or Enterprise cost from a configured cluster. The free options are the Cloud trial and the Enterprise software allowance of 10 TB and 50 vCPUs. Per-node or per-hour rates are not printed on the page.

Read from scylladb.com when Best Database Management Systems in 2026 was last reviewed (7 November 2026).

The vendor's Trust Center lists SOC 2, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, ISO 27017 and ISO 27018. Cloud clusters run in dedicated, isolated environments, and the control plane is said not to store, query or access customer data.

Encryption at rest and in transit, audit logging, SSO with SAML, private networking and, on higher tiers, customer-supplied encryption keys are listed. Immutable backups are listed for Google Cloud only. Managed hosting runs on AWS and Google Cloud; the list of available regions is not stated on the vendor's pages checked.

Integrations the vendor names (12):

• Apache Kafka
• Confluent
• Prometheus
• Datadog
• New Relic
• AppDynamics
• Terraform
• Apache Spark
• Amazon DynamoDB API (Alternator)
• Apache Cassandra CQL drivers
• Kubernetes (ScyllaDB Operator)
• Google Cloud Marketplace

Also in our records:

• Vector search is listed as an integrated feature.
• Catalogue tags that point to the ecosystem: Cassandra and DynamoDB APIs.

Closest by traits, not by rank: 5 products from the same list that overlap most with ScyllaDB.

• Redis (#6 of 22): Memory-first data store used for caching, queues and sessions, now tri-licensed. Best for: Teams already running Redis who want vector queries beside their cache. (United States)
• Couchbase (#8 of 22): JSON document database with SQL++ queries, sold as Capella or as Server. Suits: Teams wanting SQL++ over JSON documents plus mobile sync from one vendor.
• Amazon DynamoDB (#12 of 22): AWS key-value and document database billed per request or provisioned capacity. Best for: AWS-based teams wanting a database with no servers to patch. (United States)
• FerretDB (#13 of 22): Not for: teams that rely on Atlas Search or Vector Search features. Open-source proxy that serves MongoDB drivers from PostgreSQL.
• Azure Cosmos DB (#18 of 22): Not for: teams that need the whole MongoDB feature set. Microsoft's distributed database with NoSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra and PostgreSQL APIs. (United States)

Read from the vendor’s own pages on 5 November 2026.

• scylladb.com/product: architecture, deployment options, free allowances, vector search
• scylladb.com/pricing: cloud tiers, support response times, feature list, drivers, integrations
• scylladb.com/trust-center: certifications and cluster isolation

Four tests decide a position: how soon the product is useful, what the bill really becomes, how data leaves and who it suits. ScyllaDB ends up at #15 among 22. Method and commercial relationships are in our editorial process.