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Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data vs. InterSystems IRIS

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AAstra DB is a vector database for developers. In 2025 Datastax, the developer and supporter of Astra DB, was acquired. Astra DB is now available as a component of the IBM watsonx.data Multicloud offering.N/A

    InterSystems IRIS

    Score7 out of 10
    N/AInterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform that includes a multi-model transactional data management engine, an application development platform, and interoperability engine, and an open analytics platform. It is is the next generation of InterSystems' data management software. It includes…N/A
    Pricing
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Considered Both Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    InterSystems
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    46 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    45 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    40 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    45 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    44 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    32 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    44 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    Features
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Vector Database
    Comparison of Vector Database features of Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data and InterSystems IRIS
    Feature
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data
    8.0
    12 Ratings
    1% above category average
    InterSystems IRIS
    -
    Ratings
    Vector Data Connection8.212 Ratings00 Ratings
    Vector Data Editing8.56 Ratings00 Ratings
    Attribute Management7.710 Ratings00 Ratings
    Geospatial Analysis8.26 Ratings00 Ratings
    Geometric Transformations8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Vector Data Visualization8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Coordinate Reference System Management:7.96 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Import/Export8.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Symbolization and Styling8.35 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Sharing and Collaboration7.69 Ratings00 Ratings
    Relational Databases
    Comparison of Relational Databases features of Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data and InterSystems IRIS
    Feature
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data
    -
    Ratings
    InterSystems IRIS
    9.0
    1 Ratings
    11% above category average
    ACID compliance00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Database monitoring00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Database locking00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Encryption00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Disaster recovery00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Flexible deployment00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Multiple datatypes00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (46 ratings)
    7.0
    (45 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.8
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    7.4
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.6
    (44 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataInterSystems IRIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    We've been super happy with Astra DB. It's been extremely well-suited for our vector search needs as described in previous responses. With Astra DB’s high-performance vector search, Maester’s AI dynamically optimizes responses in real-time, adapting to new user interactions without requiring costly retraining cycles.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    Intersystems IRIS is a really great tool for Interoperability. It has so many capabilities out of the box and then such a great developer community on top of that, that there are really no limits to what you can do in terms of data manipulation and translation. Personally I find it to be a great tool if you are looking for Interoperability software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • We need to be able to process a lot of data (our biggest clients process hundreds of milions of transactions every month). However, it is not only the amount of data, it is also an unpredictable patterns with spikes occuring at different points of time - something athat Astra is great at.
    • Our processing needs to be extremaly fast. Some of our clients use our enrichment in a synchronous way, meaning that any delay in processing is holding up the whole transaction lifecycle and can have a major impact on the client. Astra is very fast.
    • A close collaboration with GCP makes our life very easy. All of our technology sits in Google Cloud, so having Astra in there makes it a no-brainer solution for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    • Connecting with mutliple vendor platforms and systems allowing us to consume and provide data as needed.
    • Allowed us to implement our own RESTful api engine to server data to our internal applications.
    • Setting up their recommendations for high availability allow us to perform server maintenance with minimal down time to our users.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • Need better fine-grained Security options.
    • The support team sometimes requires the escalate button pressed on tickets, to get timely responses. I will say, once the ticket is escalated, action is taken.
    • They require better documentation on the migration of data. The three primary methods for migrating large data volumes are bulk, Cassandra Data Migrator, and ZDM (Zero Downtime Migration Utility). Over time I have become very familiar will all three of these methods; however, through working with the Services team and the support team, it seemed like we were breaking new ground. I feel if the utilities were better documented and included some examples and/or use cases from large data migrations; this process would have been easier. One lesson learned is you likely need to migrate your application servers to the same cloud provider you host Astra on; otherwise, the latency is too large for latency-sensitive applications.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    • Enhanced documentation, more comprehensive and user-friendly documentation, including detailed tutorials and examples
    • Improving compatibility and integrations with others programming languages
    • Introducing tools and techniques to optimize the performance of ObjectScript applications, such as profiling tools, performance monitoring utilities, and code optimization guidelines
    • A better compatibility with Python libraries
    Read full review
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    It's a great product but suffers with counters. This isn't a deal breaker but lets down what is otherwise a good all round solution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    The interface is very intuitive, the documentation is very good so it is not complicated to operate.
    The security is complex, but you can create a special role to access and the user ONLY can operate with the part that it allows.
    Also, you can examine the data very quick with the SQL Browser integrated.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    Their response time is fast, in case you do not contact them during business hours, they give a very good follow-up to your case. They also facilitate video calls if necessary for debugging.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    The InterSystems WRC has always been helpful and responsive. The folks I have spoken with are always understanding of our needs and questions and regardless of if the question is simple or complex we are always met with the same professionalism and helpfulness every time. I have no hesitations contacting InterSystems for help!
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    Implementation Rating
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    InterSystems
    Will done based on a proper planning, so this will makes execution more easier and better.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    Graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring are all incorporated into a single platform by Astra DB. Mongo Db is a self-managed infrastructure. Astra DB has Wide column store and Mongo DB has Document store. The best thing is that Astra DB operates on Java while Mongo DB operates on C++
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    We are using InterSystems IRIS [especially] for database operations as the query performance is really good for [a large] amount of customer data. You can easily integrate for any application like web, desktop, and many more. It also provides BI functionality which is also very easy to implement using InterSystems IRIS[.]
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    Scalability
    Discontinued Products
    We are well aware of the Cassandra architecture and familiar with the open source tooling that Datastax provides the industry (K8sSandra / Stargate) to scale Cassandra on Kubernetes.
    Having prior knowledge of Cassandra / Kubernetes means we know that under the hood Astra is built on infinitely scalable technologies. We trust that the foundations that Astra is built on will scale so we know Astra will scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • Better uptime due to the managed service having no outages
    • Less technical debt because we don't need to worry about upgrading our Cassandra clusters
    • Lower cost on infrastructure as a whole
    • Quick and easy to integrate vector search into our tech stack
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    InterSystems
    • Very Fast and scalable software to deal with big data flow, safe and robust.
    • The studio IDE is quite old fashion and lacks a few facilities
    • amazing for complex data consumption, its milyi-model capability wich allows multiple different models for a single set of codes.
    Read full review
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