C++ (ScyllaDB) vs. Java’s ZGC/Shenandoah/G1

A detailed comparison between ScyllaDB and Apache Cassandra 4.0, with a focus on performance and garbage collection efficiency, reveals that ScyllaDB, built in C++, significantly outperforms Cassandra's Java-based setup. Using various Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) and garbage collectors like ZGC and Shenandoah, Cassandra achieved a maximum throughput of 51,000 operations per second with P99 latencies reaching up to 60ms. In contrast, ScyllaDB, when tested under identical conditions but with optimized hardware configurations such as fast NVMe SSDs, managed to achieve 100,000 operations per second with P99 latencies below 7ms. The analysis suggests that Cassandra requires four times the hardware to match ScyllaDB's throughput, and the performance gap widens further with larger datasets. The study indicates that ScyllaDB's auto-tuning capabilities and shard-aware technology contribute to its superior performance, making it a cost-effective and efficient alternative to Cassandra, particularly for enterprise-grade solutions.