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Amazon DynamoDB Alternatives

What Challenges Prompt Teams to Seek DynamoDB Alternatives?

What Are the Best Alternatives to DynamoDB?

What Are Some DynamoDB Open Source and Source Available Alternatives?​

Why is ScyllaDB a Popular DynamoDB Alternative?​

Where Can I Learn More About Amazon DynamoDB Alternatives?

Are there Amazon DynamoDB Alternatives that use the same API?

What Challenges Prompt Teams to Seek DynamoDB Alternatives?

DynamoDB’s biggest strength is its ability to handle massive amounts of data and traffic.  Its pay-per-use model and automatic scaling features are ideal for applications with fluctuating access patterns – particularly when the workload is read-heavy, small in terms of operations per second (ops), or when the data can be confined to a single region.

There are several reasons why teams might look for alternatives to DynamoDB, particularly as they scale application traffic for data-intensive workloads. Here are some common challenges that can lead teams to explore other solutions:

  • Cost. While DynamoDB is scalable, its pricing structure can be complex, leading to unexpected bills for applications with unpredictable data access patterns. For example, each Read and Write is allocated a cost, with Writes costing significantly more than Reads. Also, to handle the global replication of tables or accelerate the speed of reads and writes to meet SLAs around data throughput rates, there are additional charges for global tables and DynamoDB Accelerator. Teams seeking a more predictable, uniform,  and transparent pay-as-you-go pricing model might look elsewhere.
  • Performance. DynamoDB was designed and operates on AWS and lacks the same incentives to optimize the use of underlying cloud infrastructure to the fullest extent as many third-party databases are not built by the service provider as the database it runs.  For example, ScyllaDB employs a shard-per-core architecture that runs non-blocking, pinned CPU resources in parallel threads, thereby significantly improving performance over and above competing AWS, Google, or Azure equivalent databases designed to run solely on the service provider’s platform.
  • Query Flexibility. DynamoDB is designed for fast primary key lookups. DynamoDB Secondary Indexes further magnify costs and may become an impediment for write-intensive workloads.
  • Vendor Lock-in. Amazon DynamoDB runs only on AWS, limiting users to a single cloud provider. Even where AWS is the preferred cloud vendor, through mergers, acquisitions, and semi-autonomous departments, there are invariably Google, Microsoft, and other public and private cloud deployments. Options for platform portability are often cited in surveys of developers and IT operations as a critical requirement in the selection and enterprise-wide adoption of cloud databases. As a result, many teams prefer a database solution that is more portable across different cloud platforms.

What Are the Best Alternatives to DynamoDB?

Here are some popular DynamoDB alternatives to consider, each with its own strengths and weaknesses:

Cloud-Based NoSQL Databases

  • Azure Cosmos DB (Microsoft) is a globally distributed, multi-model database offering high availability, scalability, and strong consistency guarantees. It is ideal for geographically distributed applications or those needing flexible data models. Azure Cosmos DB provides a CQL-compatible wire protocol but is a Microsoft-only, proprietary offering.
  • MongoDB Atlas (Cloud-hosted MongoDB) is a popular document-oriented NoSQL database with a rich query language and a large developer community. It is a good choice for applications that need to store and query complex data structures and run ad hoc analytics. Still, it has difficulty scaling and is expensive for large global deployments.
  • Google Cloud Firestore is a flexible, scalable NoSQL document database with offline support and real-time data sync. Firestore is also proprietary—including its APIs—and runs only on the Google Cloud Platform.
  • Couchbase is a distributed NoSQL database known for its performance and scalability. It offers strong data consistency and flexible indexing options and runs on multiple cloud and on-premise platforms.
  • Amazon Keyspaces (AWS) is the AWS-managed service offering for Apache Cassandra, which is fully compatible with CQL and all the Apache Cassandra ecosystem tools and services. However, Keyspaces does not eliminate the underlying architecture-based inefficiencies of Cassandra being written in Java and node size limitations leading to node sprawl.
  • ScyllaDB Cloud is ScyllaDB’s managed service platform and is fully compatible with the Apache Cassandra Query Language (CQL) and the DynamoDB protocols. ScyllaDB is written in C++ and optimized to fully exploit modern cloud infrastructure’s underlying compute, memory, and networking.

Choosing the Right DynamoDB Alternative

Here are some factors to consider when evaluating DynamoDB alternatives:
  • Cost. Pricing models vary. Avoid pay-as-you-go options that are not transparent and lack predictability as you scale. Automation for scaling up may still not support your requirements for speed and elasticity of scaling. Many vendors get around this by pre-provisioning resources on “standby” and charging you a premium for them.  Consider whether automation of provisioning through easy-to-use self-service operations may provide more control and lower costs in cases where your burst traffic can be modeled.
  • Scalability. Consider your data growth expectations and choose a solution to handle them.  Some degree of capacity planning and an understanding of the underlying capabilities of the managed services you’re evaluating, along with their provisioned and pay-as-you-go pricing structures, can help you avoid downstream bill shock.
  • Query Flexibility. Do you need complex queries such as global or local secondary indexes or just simple lookups?  Are you running queries that must support global writes?  Can you design your data model so that eventual consistency across regions can be satisfied by local quorum?
  • Vendor Lock-in. If portability across clouds is essential, explore open-source options or if there is a wire-protocol level compatible API to your existing application. Specifically, in this case, is there a DynamoDB API alternative that allows for drop-in replacement with as little migration effort as possible?
Remember, the best approach is to carefully evaluate your application’s requirements and choose the database solution that best meets your needs.

What Are Some DynamoDB Open Source and Source Available Alternatives?

DynamoDB isn’t open-source, but several open-source  and source-availale NoSQL databases offer similar functionality and can be self-hosted as alternatives. Here are a few to consider:

  • ScyllaDB is a source-available, high-performance NoSQL database designed for scalability, high throughput, and low latency. ScyllaDB provides a DynamoDB-compatible API (ScyllaDB Alternator), which eases migration from DynamoDB.
  • Apache Cassandra is a distributed NoSQL database known for its fault tolerance and ability to handle massive data sets across multiple servers.  However, Cassandra underutilizes modern cloud infrastructure and can be more complex to manage than other options, including DynamoDB.

Things to Consider with DynamoDB Alternatives

Here are some factors to consider when evaluating  DynamoDB alternatives:

  • Self-Management. Unlike DynamoDB’s managed service, you’ll be responsible for setting up, operating, and maintaining the database infrastructure yourself. This requires more technical expertise. A cake-and-eat-it-too approach is to select an open-source option such as ScyllaDB or Cassandra that offers a managed service option, requiring zero change to your applications.
  • Performance and Scalability. While these options can be highly scalable, achieving optimal performance might require more configuration than a managed service.  Remember that the underlying architecture and its ability to optimize the use of cloud infrastructure can significantly and non-linearly impact your price performance as you scale up.
  • Community Support. Open-source projects rely on community support for troubleshooting and feature development. Amazon DynamoDB is a Global 50 corporation with revenues to support a very sizable development, test, service, and support team. However, ScyllaDB and Cassandra have large communities with global customers dependent on their communities for mission-critical applications, including Apple, Netflix, Hulu, General Electric, Rakuten, Walmart, Starbucks, and others.

Choosing the Right Option 

The best alternative for DynamoDB depends on your specific needs. Consider factors like:

  • Your team’s technical expertise. Can you manage the database infrastructure effectively? Do you envision needing to view – let alone modify or extend the code?
  • Performance requirements. How critical are low latency and high throughput? Do you have the budget to support your latency and high throughput requirements if you take the DynamoDB route and scale? 
  • Data consistency needs. Do you require strong consistency guarantees? Does the NoSQL database you’re evaluating have options to set the consistency level through quorum options? Will you be charged a premium to use the stronger consistency option?  
  • Community support. Is there an active community to help with issues? Can you get a managed service offering tied to that community?

By carefully evaluating your needs and the capabilities of these open-source options, you can find a suitable alternative to DynamoDB that provides the necessary features, management approach, and cost-effectiveness for your project.

Why is ScyllaDB a Popular DynamoDB Alternative?

ScyllaDB emerges as a popular alternative to DynamoDB for several reasons:

  • Cost-Effectiveness. ScyllaDB pricing is transparent and linearly tracks the size of the nodes (based solely on cloud infrastructure consumed) and the number of nodes deployed. There isn’t separate pricing for Reads versus Writes, local versus global tables, additional costs to support higher throughput or any other additional fees. ScyllaDB OnDemand or provisioned offerings can yield significant cost savings compared to DynamoDB’s pay-per-use structure, especially for applications with unpredictable data access patterns. Further, as you scale beyond 50K ops, the cost savings continue to rise.
  • Performance. ScyllaDB boasts high performance and scalability, often exceeding DynamoDB in benchmarks. This results in faster read/write speeds, efficient handling of larger data volumes, and sustained lower latencies, usually in the sub to single-digit millisecond range. 
  • API Compatibility. ScyllaDB Alternator provides a DynamoDB-compatible API. This allows DynamoDB applications to run on ScyllaDB with minimal code changes, reducing migration complexity.
  • Flexibility and Control. Since ScyllaDB is open-source, you have more control over the database deployment and configuration. This can be advantageous for tailoring the database to your specific needs and optimizing performance.
  • Wider Feature Set. While ScyllaDB offers DynamoDB-like functionality, it has additional features not available in DynamoDB, such as support for larger items and more robust querying capabilities. An added bonus is that ScyllaDB can be used for many other database uses that would map to other AWS offerings.

Choosing Between DynamoDB and ScyllaDB

The best choice depends on your specific needs. Here are some factors to consider:

  • Cost Sensitivity. If cost is a major concern, ScyllaDB’s potential for significant savings can be a big advantage – particularly if your app must scale or support global write-heavy workloads or if you have a portfolio of apps where ScyllaDB’s ability to support CQL, time-series data, external cache replacement, and many other specialized database applications with a single database yields cost savings as well as consolidation opportunities.
  • Performance Requirements. ScyllaDB might better fit applications requiring top-notch performance and scalability. ScyllaDB deployments often observe predictable low latencies and consistent performance as required by data-intensive applications.
  • Cloud Portability vs. Migration Complexity. The ability to run DynamoDB apps on Google Cloud or even on-premise can be compelling from a cost and flexibility standpoint. However, this must be weighed against the time, risk, and cost of migration.  The lower the migration investment, the more appealing cloud portability becomes.  Thus, minimal code disruption is crucial; ScyllaDB’s API compatibility can drastically simplify migration, making ScyllaDB Alternator a drop-in replacement for DynamoDB on other platforms outside AWS.

By carefully evaluating these factors, you can determine if ScyllaDB’s strengths make it a compelling alternative to DynamoDB for your project.

Where Can I Learn More About Amazon DynamoDB Alternatives?

There are several online resources you can explore to learn more about Amazon DynamoDB alternatives:

  • Amazon DynamoDB vs ScyllaDB Comparison. How ScyllaDB’s architecture compares to DynamoDB, including a comprehensive feature-by-feature comparison.
  • DynamoDB Migration Case Studies and Best Practices. This is a collection of tech talks, white papers, and on-demand webinars that share why and how teams are migrating from DynamoDB.
  • Amazon DynamoDB and ScyllaDB Cost Perspectives. Compares DynamoDB and DynamoDB from a cost perspective.
  • Cloud Provider Documentation. Each major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) offers detailed documentation on their NoSQL database offerings, including comparisons to DynamoDB.
  • Database Review Websites. Sites like G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra provide user reviews and comparisons of various NoSQL databases, including DynamoDB alternatives.
  • Open-Source Project Websites. The official websites of open-source NoSQL databases like ScyllaDB, Cassandra, and MongoDB offer documentation, tutorials, and community forums to learn more about their capabilities.
  • Tech Blogs and Articles. Many technology blogs and publications publish articles comparing different NoSQL databases. Searching for terms like “DynamoDB alternatives” or “Best NoSQL databases for [your use case]” can lead you to helpful resources.

Are there Amazon DynamoDB Alternatives that use the same API?

ScyllaDB with Alternator is an open-source, high-performance NoSQL database designed for scalability, high throughput, and low latency. It offers an “Alternator” feature, which acts as a DynamoDB-compatible API. This allows DynamoDB applications to be run on ScyllaDB with minimal or no code changes. ScyllaDB boasts advantages like lower costs and improved performance compared to DynamoDB. There are options for self-management of the database infrastructure on-premise or in a private cloud or to run it as a managed service on AWS or Google Cloud platform.

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Apache® and Apache Cassandra® are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. Amazon DynamoDB® and Dynamo Accelerator® are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. No endorsements by The Apache Software Foundation or Amazon.com, Inc. are implied by the use of these marks.