Hector vs Astyanax for Cassandra [closed]

Question

We are starting a new java web-project with Cassandra as the database. The team is very well-experienced with RDBMS/JPA/Hibernate/Spring but very new to the world of NoSQL. We want to start the development with as simple setup as possible. Hector seems to be the most preferred and popular choice for connecting to Cassandra. But, Netflix has recently offered Astyanax, which has its origins in Hector. Can anyone who has used both these technologies share their experiences? I am looking for easy setup, good documentation and simple/clean usage. Suggestions about other api's are also welcome.

Closehauled

See wiki.apache.org/cassandra/ClientOptions for a few more options, but I would start with Astyanax or Hector myself... – Markel

@Markel Link seems to be broken. – Kiker

Yes, the entire wiki site seems to be down (503); not sure why! – Markel

Answer 1

I've tried both and Astyanax is way easier. The API actually makes sense and reflects what your are actually doing. Both Hector or direct Thrift usually results hard to decipher code.

There are some issues yet to be solved in Astyanax (a.o. getColumnByName), but I've decided to build my project using it.

Oh, I used the snapshot version (manually build, since it was not in any maven repo) because of some outdated references.

Bigamist

Astyanax has big company support, while Hector seems to be backed up by some individuals. – Anglaangle

Well, it's not really that. Hector is the semi official Java API for Cassandra, so it usually is one of the first to adopt any changes. But Astyanax's API simply is so much easier IMHO. – Bigamist

Answer 2

FWIW, I've only been working with Cassandra for about 2 weeks now, but I'm already successfully writing to Cassandra with Astyanax, using composite columns, etc.

I am also not a Java programmer either, so my point is that it seems pretty robust and easy to use.

Almost

Answer 3

I started using Hector, which I think is excellent, but then moved to Astyanax. Astyanax is an abstraction over Hector, and is much simpler to use IMHO. I experienced a minor bug on Hector, to do with keeping a connection alive, which was magically solved once I'd switched to Astyanax.

Reddish