Is Cassandra DB Open Source?
19.02.2025
Cassandra DB is an open-source, distributed NoSQL database management system designed to handle large amounts of data across many commodity servers, providing high availability and fault tolerance.

Key Features of Cassandra DB:
- Distributed Architecture: Cassandra is designed to be distributed, with no single point of failure. Data is distributed across multiple nodes for scalability and fault tolerance.
- High Availability: Cassandra is designed to ensure that data is always available, even in the event of node failures.
- Linear Scalability: Cassandra can easily scale to handle large amounts of data by adding more nodes to the cluster.
- Flexible Data Model: Cassandra supports a flexible data model that allows for the storage of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.
- Fast Writes: Cassandra is optimized for fast writes, making it ideal for write-heavy workloads.
Open Source Nature of Cassandra DB:
Cassandra DB is indeed open source, released under the Apache License 2.0. This means that the source code of Cassandra is freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute.
Benefits of Open Source Cassandra DB:
- Cost-Effective: As an open-source solution, Cassandra is cost-effective for businesses looking to implement a scalable and reliable database system without incurring high licensing fees.
- Community Support: The open-source nature of Cassandra means that there is a vibrant community of developers and users who contribute to its development and provide support through forums, mailing lists, and other channels.
- Customization: Being open source allows organizations to customize Cassandra to meet their specific needs and integrate it with other tools and systems in their environment.
- Transparency: The open nature of Cassandra’s source code provides transparency into how the database system works, which can be beneficial for security audits and troubleshooting.
Commercial Offerings:
While Cassandra DB is open source, there are also commercial offerings and support services available from companies like DataStax, which provide additional features, tools, and support for organizations looking for enterprise-level solutions based on Cassandra.
In conclusion, Cassandra DB is a powerful open-source NoSQL database system that offers scalability, high availability, and flexibility for handling large amounts of data. Its open-source nature provides numerous benefits for organizations looking to build scalable and cost-effective database solutions.