We Compared ScyllaDB and Memcached and… We Lost?

Engineers from ScyllaDB and Memcached collaborated to compare the performance of these two technologies in a vendor-neutral manner, revealing insights into their respective strengths and trade-offs. Although both systems demonstrated similar overall performance under stress, Memcached required additional IO threads for optimal disk I/O, whereas ScyllaDB needed data modeling adjustments to maximize network throughput. Memcached excelled in memory efficiency, storing more items before eviction, while ScyllaDB showcased better latencies for pipelined requests. The comparison explored scenarios from RAM caching efficiency to disk-bound workloads, highlighting Memcached's ability to handle simple key-value models and ScyllaDB's suitability for complex data models and data persistence. Ultimately, the choice between them depends on specific workload requirements, such as data complexity and persistence needs, with both capable of maximizing hardware utilization and offering potential cost savings when configured correctly.