Full-Text Search, Object Storage Backend, and More in ScyllaDB 2026.3

The latest updates should help you move even more workloads to ScyllaDB, at a fraction of the cost

ScyllaDB’s latest release adds major updates like full-text search, object store backend (preview), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integration, and multiple bug fixes. These new updates should help you move even more workloads to ScyllaDB, at a fraction of the cost.

The updates include:

• Full-Text Search: Enhanced ScyllaDB with full-text search, ES Query String syntax, and BM25 relevance scoring. In combination with ScyllaDB Vector Search, this provides better support for RAG and agentic real-time AI use cases.
• Preview Feature: ScyllaDB clusters offer S3 storage, which is particularly interesting for write-intensive, storage-bound, use cases.
• Experimental features: Become an early adopter of features like Strongly Consistent Tables and vNode-to-Tablet online migration.
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) integration.

2026.3 is more stable, works faster, and better than any past release. We recommend upgrading to 2026.3 and using it for all new deployments.

For the full release notes, see this forum post.

Full-Text Search (FTS)

ScyllaDB introduces Full-Text Search, allowing you to run keyword searches over text columns directly from CQL. A new custom index type, fulltext_index, can be managed with CREATE INDEX / DROP INDEX and inspected with DESCRIBE INDEX.

Queries use the new MATCH() function in the CQL parser, with results ordered by relevance and honoring LIMIT. Relevance scoring is provided by a new BM25() scoring function.

Example:

CREATE CUSTOM INDEX ON my_keyspace.documents (body)
  USING 'fulltext_index';

SELECT id, body
  FROM my_keyspace.documents
  WHERE body MATCH 'distributed database'
  LIMIT 10;

See Full-Text Search in the ScyllaDB documentation for details about using the feature.

Large Data Guardrails

A comprehensive set of large-data guardrails has been added to help detect and control unsafe data patterns before they impact cluster stability. Guardrails cover large partitions, rows, cells, and collections, with enforcement on both the coordinator side and the replica side, including the CAS/LWT path. Each guardrail supports soft (warning) and hard limits.

See Large Data Guardrails and BYPASS LARGE_DATA_GUARDRAILS clause in the ScyllaDB documentation for details.

Cluster-Wide Restore from Object Storage

Tablet-based tables can now be restored from an object-storage backup with a single cluster-wide operation, without the node-by-node procedure. Each replica downloads its data directly from the bucket with no data streamed between nodes. The operation is robust: it reports progress, can be aborted, and resumes automatically if the coordinating node changes mid-operation.

See Restore from a Backup and Incremental Backup for details.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Support

Two additions to ScyllaDB’s OCI support:

• Native Backup and Restore to OCI Object Storage. ScyllaDB’s native backup and restore now supports Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage. See Backup and Restore Procedures in the ScyllaDB documentation.
• ScyllaDB now provides ready-to-use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) images, making it easier to deploy and run ScyllaDB clusters on OCI. See Launch ScyllaDB on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) for details.

Granular Audit Configuration

You can now set audit rules based on ScyllaDB roles and users.

See Audit Rules in the ScyllaDB documentation for details.

Preview: Keyspace Storage on S3-Compatible Object Storage

ScyllaDB keyspaces can now be configured to store their SSTables on Amazon S3 or any S3-compatible object storage instead of local disk. This allows you to decouple storage from compute, enabling cost-effective scaling and simplifying capacity management for large datasets.

To use object storage for a keyspace, first configure your storage endpoint, then specify the storage options at keyspace creation:

CREATE KEYSPACE ks
    WITH REPLICATION = { 'class': 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'replication_factor': 3 }
    AND STORAGE = { 'type': 'S3', 'bucket': 'my-bucket', 'endpoint': 'my-endpoint' };

See Keyspace storage options and Configuring Object Storage in the ScyllaDB documentation for details. Note this feature is in preview, which means API is stable, and more tests are required.

Interested in becoming an early adopter? Contact our support team.

Experimental features

Strong Consistency: Raft Group per Tablet

ScyllaDB has been using the Raft consensus algorithm for metadata like cluster topology and data distribution (Tablets) for years now. In this release, ScyllaDB started using Raft for data consistency as well. You can now create a globally consistent Keyspace, and enjoy strong consistency – with performance that’s very close to eventual consistency, and superior to the existing LWT approach.

You can read more about this in Riding the Raft to Strong Consistency in ScyllaDB.

vNodes to Tablets Migration

Tablets, ScyllaDB’s new dynamic algorithm for data distribution, powers ScyllaDB’s extreme elasticity. With 2026.1, tablets achieved full feature parity and became recommended for all new clusters. But what about existing production clusters? In 2026.2, ScyllaDB provides a zero-downtime migration from legacy vNodes to Tablets, with minimal resource usage.

See Migrate a Keyspace from vNodes to Tablets in the ScyllaDB documentation for details.

Want to use one of the experimental features? See the documentation for details on how to enable them, or contact the ScyllaDB support team.