Vendors Compete to Make Serverless NoSQL in the Cloud Drop-Dead Simple

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You will soon be able to get started on a serverless instance of MongoDB in the AWS cloud without spending a dime, and use the NoSQL database on a pay-as-you-go basis, the company announced this week at re:Invent. Not to be outdone, Datastax says it’s serverless version of a hosted NoSQL database in the cloud is already available.

MongoDB has supported its popular document store on the cloud for years via its MongoDB Atlas service, a managed service that is available on all three public clouds. The company is in the process of rolling out a serverless version of Atlas that will allow customers’ database workloads to scale up and down on demand. The serverless option for Atlas is currently in preview, according to MongoDB’s database.

This week, the New York City company announced that MongoDB Atlas will be available in AWS Marketplace in the first quarter of 2022. This isn’t the first time that MongoDB has been available in AWS Marketplace, but it’s a first for Atlas.

According to MongoDB, this will allow customers to get started with the NoSQL database with no upfront commitments when they sign up for a free trial. What’s more, they’ll be able to continue using the database service by paying only for what they use, in a serverless fashion.

It’s all about removing friction for developers, says Stephen Orban, general manager of AWS Marketplace and control services. “MongoDB Atlas’ pay-as-you-go offering will provide customers with one of the most developer-friendly databases with an integrated and simplified subscription experience on AWS Marketplace,” Orban says in a press release.

But when it becomes available next year, MongoDB Atlas on AWS Marketplace won’t be the only serverless NoSQL database in town. In fact, DataStax beat MongoDB to the serverless punch with Astra, its hosted version of the Apache Cassandra database.

“Developers want databases to be serverless,” DataStax Chief Product Officer Ed Anuff tells Datanami via email. “This is why we introduced serverless Cassandra last year and went GA at the start of this year.”

While being serverless is nice, scalability is more important, Anuff adds. “This is why serverless Cassandra is still the best serverless NoSQL offering and the only option for true ‘pay-as-you-grow,’ Anuff says. “That’s why we have a number of high growth SaaS startups on Astra. It’s the only option that will take you as far as you need to go no matter what.”

DataStax is trying to gain the sort of market share that MongoDB already has. MongoDB, which recorded $590 million in revevnues last year, has more than 29,000 customers in over 100 countries, and its open source database has been downloaded more than 200 million times, the publicly traded company says. The privately held DataStax, meanwhile, has about 500 customers, according to a press release from earlier this year.

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