Likelihood to Recommend We use Astra DB to improve our management systems. Storing data has become hassle-free and quite simple. When launching a Cassandra-based cloud application, Astra DB is exactly what you need. In addition to the standard training programs and videos, the extended support and training require significant additional effort to activate and cover which I feel is a bit more tedious task.
Read full review Applications where the users need [to] execute many short queries. With new storage engines such as Aria, which allows to replace MyISAM with some improvements, and XtraDB, which evolves InnoDB. To fuse the legacy features with the features available in NoSQL databases. Connection management, which allows multiplying the number of concurrent accesses. New clustering engines, such as Galera, which allow interesting possibilities for Cloud adoption. Read full review Pros It's very resilient and scalable, no downtime and no issues scaling up to meet our needs. Low latency reads and writes Cost effective - The on demand model worked out cheaper than running our own clusters Great support for any of our questions or issues Read full review Simpler learning curve. MariaDB is a cleaner, simpler system that is (IMO) easier to learn and easier to manage effectively than many other database systems. Lower hardware requirements. After migrating to MariaDB from another database software system, we find that our hardware needs have substantially decreased. MariaDB support is very responsive. It's like they actually care. On the few occasions we've run into technical issues, support has always come through with what we needed. Once it was showing me a relatively new feature the server supported that I wasn't aware of, that, once I was able to properly make use of it helped me resolve a serious production performance issue. Architectural flexibility. As an example, the ready availability of synchronous (Galera) versus asynchronous replication schemes without being locked into one of the other by enormous technical complexity or punitive licensing, allows the customer to find what really works best for their needs. Read full review Cons Need better fine-grained Security options. The support team sometimes requires the escalate button pressed on tickets, to get timely responses. I will say, once the ticket is escalated, action is taken. They require better documentation on the migration of data. The three primary methods for migrating large data volumes are bulk, Cassandra Data Migrator, and ZDM (Zero Downtime Migration Utility). Over time I have become very familiar will all three of these methods; however, through working with the Services team and the support team, it seemed like we were breaking new ground. I feel if the utilities were better documented and included some examples and/or use cases from large data migrations; this process would have been easier. One lesson learned is you likely need to migrate your application servers to the same cloud provider you host Astra on; otherwise, the latency is too large for latency-sensitive applications. Read full review Driver Support - Some third party applications use database drivers that cause unexplained slowness with MariaDB. This can be worked around by using the MySQL drivers, but it's not clear what causes the problem in the first place. Support - While online communities are helpful in diagnosing problems, there isn't as much professional documentation/support available for MariaDB as some of the other major database options. Data Visualization - It would be helpful if there were more built in options for analyzing statistics and generating reports. Read full review Usability It's a great product but suffers with counters. This isn't a deal breaker but lets down what is otherwise a good all round solution
Read full review MariaDB is very usable and stable to be used in production settings as an alternative to
MySQL . The shortcomings of SQL are present but well understood in the community, and if the decision were to be made again, I would choose MariaDB over
MySQL on future projects.
Read full review Support Rating Their response time is fast, in case you do not contact them during business hours, they give a very good follow-up to your case. They also facilitate video calls if necessary for debugging.
Read full review We have launched several inquiries to MariaDB support and they have always responded very quickly and have not been tutoring for the duration of the incident/problem.
Likewise, they want to hold constant meetings with the client to get their opinion as well as how they can help.
I see a very human support and concerned about the customer.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We know Astra is built on Cassandra / Kubernetes / Stargate and can work on any cloud. The competitors we reviewed are cloud specific and create a lock in. We also have the option to run Cassandra / Stargate ourselves if we wanted to. The competitors don’t give that option
Read full review MariaDB stacks up the the competition just fine. Due to is ture open source nature we do not have to worry about licencing and spending money on nothing. Moreover, MariaDB does everything that we need to get done. We can run data that is a million rows or many smaller projects on the same environment with little overhead. One of the best features that MariaDB has is the ability of backup or dump data to standard text sql statements. That was one of the reasons why we choose MariaDb because it makes backups or transferring data a snap
Read full review Scalability Our use case and requirements for scaling don't allow me to comment on ability to scale to millions of users, however from what I know of other use cases where Astra has been applied, and Astra's architectural design makes me confident it will be able to scale to meet most requirements
Read full review Return on Investment The high availability capabilities of Astra DB can assist in reducing downtime, which is crucial for revenue-generating applications. The developer-friendly features of Astra DB, as well as support for known query languages, can help expedite development, save development time, and minimize labor costs. This can result in a shorter time to market and a higher ROI. Read full review Low CAPEX if you have a team that use open source software day by day Medium OPEX if you have a team that use open source software day by day Perfect to use in academic ambient to support researchers and students Read full review ScreenShots