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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

    kdb+

    Score9 out of 10
    N/Akdb+ is a time series database from kx headquartered in Palo Alto, California, a division of First Derivatives.N/A
    Pricing
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    Considered Both Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Kx
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    46 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    45 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    44 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    Vector Database
    Comparison of Vector Database features of Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data and kdb+
    Feature
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data
    8.0
    12 Ratings
    1% above category average
    kdb+
    -
    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
    Best Alternatives
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    InfluxDB
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (46 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.8
    (4 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.6
    (44 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.datakdb+
    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
    Kx
    kdb is well suited for real time tick data and time series analytics.
    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
    Kx
    • Time series analysis. The built-in vector operations are extremely fast. Also with the q language you can code up any customized analytical ideas quickly.
    • The database are all file based, very easy to maintain.
    • Very solid and fast interface to websocket, so you can interface with javascript easily.
    Incentivized
    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
    Kx
    • Run time error message readability, particularly for new users.
    • Backwards compatibility between versions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Kx
    switching costs
    Incentivized
    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
    Kx
    its ok
    Incentivized
    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
    Kx
    We don't use it.
    Incentivized
    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
    Kx
    Python is very commonly used for large data analysis and in general is much easier to pickup than kdb+. The biggest drawback of kdb+ is the learning curve.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Kx
    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
    Kx
    • It perfectly solves most of our real time tick data needs.
    • Finding good kdb resources is slightly difficult. Also new people trying to learn kdb experience a relatively longer learning curve.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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