We have been using CockroachDB for the last two years. From 2023, we started working on a product similar to Google Capture. We decided to work with CockroachDB with Hasura. Hasura is a UI for the database CockroachDB that provides a playground to work with the API and data. Since CockroachDB primarily supports SQL, we didn't want to use plain SQL in our programming, so we decided to go with ORM and selected Hasura. With Hasura, we sometimes require GraphQL. Besides using GraphQL, we have also used SQL with CockroachDB directly to get data and perform insert and update operations.

Regarding our operations, CockroachDB equals PostgreSQL plus Google Spanner, and we can remove scalability, then add resilience across regions.

For CockroachDB multi-active availability, all replicas of our data are active and can serve read and write simultaneously. Currently, we are not using these features because our database is not too large with only 20 customers using our application. MAA is a feature provided by CockroachDB, but they charge for this functionality. It has consequences by raft where each range of data is replicated with default three replicas. Writes go through raft consensus where a majority of replicas must agree, ensuring strong consistency even if some nodes or regions fail.

Regarding multi-region or global clusters, it allows spanning clusters across multiple regions. We are configured with AWS because we use Lambda functions on the server end. The zone configuration lets you control where replicas live, such as keeping EU customer data in EU and US customer data in US, though we aren't currently using this feature.

ACID transactions are not required in our application because we don't have any payment gateway currently. CockroachDB uses a two-phase commit protocol on top of raft consensus. If any part of the transaction fails, commits, times out, or node crashes, CockroachDB automatically rolls back.

The benefits include being developer-friendly, strong security with RBAC, encryption, and data residency laws by pinning data to specific regions. It is self-healing because if a node crashes, data automatically rebalances to healthy nodes without manual failover, replication, or clustering needed. Finally, it offers cost efficiency.

CockroachDB is excellent for managing relationships in RDBMS. There are multiple benefits such as the ability to create views and dynamic queries that save data and reduce the use of complex algorithms in code. Instead of writing algorithms to get desired output, we can directly call the views where predefined algorithms form the view to get the desired output.

CockroachDB's geo-distribution feature is superior to traditional databases. The admin UI can be used according to requirements. Compared to traditional databases PostgreSQL and MySQL, CockroachDB provides both SQL features and is horizontally scalable, meaning it is cloud-native. We can start with a single node and scale to hundreds of nodes across multiple regions. It automatically distributes data and workload without manual sharding.

The database offers high availability and fault tolerance with data replicated across nodes and regions. It is compatible with various drivers and ORMs including Prisma, Sequelize, and Hibernate. It provides automatic migrations and online schema changes. Security features include encryption in transit, role-based access control, and compliance with data residency laws by pinning data to specific regions.

CockroachDB supports ACID transactions and is cloud-native, allowing creation of hundreds of microservices with multiple regions. The automatic data and workload distribution eliminates the need for sharding, which is required in databases MongoDB.

The platform should provide a UI feature where users have the ability to manage it. The CockroachDB platform should have a chatbot where users can inquire about pricing or seek solutions for queries, rather than relying on email support.

The current UI only provides SQL playground, which is technical. There should be a UI playground where users with limited technical knowledge can run and update queries, similar to phpMyAdmin or Adminer.

Latency optimization could be improved for globally distributed applications, particularly in query routing. For multi-region deployment, CockroachDB requires at least three plus replicas across data centers to achieve strong consistency across regions, which increases infrastructure costs including compute, storage, and networking.

The disadvantages include cost-efficiency with multi-region deployment and schema migration speed, which should be faster compared to other drivers. The query optimizer should handle complex queries better through the UI interface.

Positive

The setup was very straightforward. Everything was mentioned in the documentation, and even a layman or business analyst can complete the setup without having technical knowledge.

The tech support deserves a rating of nine out of ten. My overall rating for CockroachDB is 8 out of 10.

We have a legal and compliance team. We have a compliance request that the personal data from the EU must stay in the EU, and the data from Singapore must stay in Singapore. CockroachDB is a distributed database system. It exactly fits our requirement to keep the data isolated. At the same time, we can have multiple instances globally. We cannot keep the nodes in different locations in a relational database like Oracle or MySQL.

The distributed nature of CockroachDB helps us isolate the data when required. We also have some application logic that determines where the data must go. The best feature of CockroachDB is the ability to keep the nodes in different locations. It solves many problems.

The product is not an enterprise-level solution. The product must improve its disaster recovery features. It must also improve on support, logging, and backup restore.

I have been using the solution for almost three to three and a half years.

We haven't encountered many problems with the tool’s stability. It is pretty stable.

The tool is easily scalable. One of the reasons we chose it is its scalability. If a CPU hits 80%, by default, it can spin off new instances and provide quick support. Overall, we have 1000 people using the solution in our organization. We have 200 concurrent users. We plan to use it more in the future.

The technical support team is getting better. The support is pretty good. The team wants good customer feedback and takes the product to the next level. Initially, we had some issues getting support 24/7. Over time, the support has improved. I rate the technical support a seven or eight out of ten. We need to pay a little if we want enterprise-level support.

Neutral

We were using MySQL. We had difficulties in isolating the data, so we switched to CockroachDB. CockroachDB is an open-source tool. The support is pretty good, and the support fee is much lower than the competitors. There were only three to four products in the market at that time.

The initial setup is simple and straightforward. The default out-of-the-box solution comes with the basic setup. We can set it up quickly. We need some technical knowledge for disaster recovery and backup restorations, but it is not that complex.

The solution is worth the money.

We evaluated another product, but it was very expensive compared to CockroachDB.

I will advise people to use the product. It will be beneficial in the long run. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use CockroachDB as the main database to handle the high-velocity data and ensure real-time processing for a music platform. It enables the processing of a large volume of credit scoring records online within a limited timeframe. It helps us distribute the workload among nodes and create a cluster to improve performance and scalability. It is useful for applications that don't require Postgres-specific features. Also, its compatibility with Postgres makes switching between the databases easier.

The product has valuable security features. It is easy to set up SSL certificates for communication between nodes. It has a user-friendly observability feature in terms of UI, helping us monitor login performance, identify slow queries, and view latency between the nodes. It is very adaptable, allowing us to tune specific details easily. It is based on a distributed architecture that determines and manages the number of nodes. It has an automatic rebalancing feature to manage the scenarios where nodes go offline and return online. It provides good performance if used for the right use case. Additionally, its compatibility with Postgres is a valuable feature as well.

The platform could be more extensible. At the moment, I have to use Postgres for extension issues. There needs to be better integration features. Additionally, the product’s Change Data Capture Integrations with tools such as Kafka needs improvement.

We have been using CockroachDB for two years.

The product is very stable. Sometimes, queries overuse the memory, leading to downtime. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

The product is scalable. Its scalability is a nine or ten out of ten. The number of users depends on the client’s organization and ranges from a few thousand to millions of users.

While learning its functionality, I contacted the product’s technical support team regarding extensibility issues.

I used Postgres, I switched because I needed a distributed version with Postgres-like functionality and high resilience.

The initial setup was quite easy for me. The process of security setting and certificate generation may be complicated. It requires experience and knowledge of using the Linux administration system.

In-house

The product generates a return on investment.

The platform is affordable even for the enterprise version. It provides value for investment in terms of performance.

I rate CockroachDB a nine out of ten. It is a reliable and best operational database product for higher use cases.