DataStax Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Vector Databases, Q3 2024

We’re thrilled to announce that DataStax has been named a Leader in Forrester’s Wave™ for Vector Databases. We are also the only hybrid vector database Leader.

We believe this recognition reflects our commitment to delivering the AI platform that provides developers and companies with the tools they need to successfully build AI applications and get them into production quickly.

We have chosen a different approach than most others in our market and appreciate being established as a “Leader” in Forrester's evaluation.

Most of the players in the vector database space fall into one of two camps:

• Legacy database companies that have added nominal vector storage and search to their existing products by bolting on established indexing methods like HNSW. These vector implementations are often not robust enough for production work. Additionally, vector capabilities are just one facet of what’s required  to be successful in building and deploying scalable and accurate AI applications, and the legacy providers aren’t solving for the other necessary pieces. For example: ingestion, chunking/chunking strategy, vector embedding generation, and real-time context.
• Relatively new companies focusing on the delivery of native, vector-only storage and search for use with RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) apps. These “bolt-on” vector providers that must layer on top of your data infrastructure by necessity greatly increase complexity—leaving it in the hands of the developers to manage complex data structures across the data systems that handle the rest of their company’s data.

The data infrastructure required for AI is much more than just “vector.” Time-series, key/value, tabular, graph—they all play a critical role in making vector successful. By having them built into the core together, users don't have to stitch together a multitude of data solutions to gain the value of generative AI or their traditional use cases. All these can be done with one data platform; this reduces complexity and decision fatigue. Vector natives, on the other hand, can end up becoming brokers of complexity as they drive higher specialization requirements into the business.

DataStax has over a decade of experience handling high-scale, near-zero latency NoSQL production workloads across the world’s largest banks, retailers, online travel agencies, app stores, gaming companies, and more. These companies want a system where vector, graph data, and knowledge graphs, along with structured and unstructured data, are all intrinsic to a single system.  

This reduces complexity, speeds development, and—perhaps most importantly—enables the near-zero latency that is needed to drive relevancy and accuracy in AI applications (in other words, reduce hallucinations).

We’re proud to be recognized for:

• Performance and scale - Speed and scalability are essential for handling vast volumes of vector data, especially for applications that process millions of vectors. For example, look at Wikimedia’s (the organization behind Wikipedia) recent announcement about using DataStax as the vector database behind their new open source Wikidata dataset. Wikimedia holds the world’s knowledge and needed a partner that could handle massive amounts of data and serve in real-time.
• Broad vector capabilities - These include vector streaming, indexing, metadata management, and hybrid search, which are vital for developing and deploying GenAI applications.
• Data management for vectors - Efficient vector databases offer a range of data management functions, including real-time updates, data integration, and elastic scalability.

Looking ahead

As the AI platform and a leader in vector databases, DataStax is dedicated to empowering organizations to build and scale AI-driven applications. We’re excited about the future of vector databases and are committed to providing our customers with the tools and support they need to succeed in this rapidly evolving landscape.

We thank Forrester for this recognition and our customers for their continued trust and partnership. We look forward to helping you unlock new possibilities with vector databases and AI.

Get your complimentary digital copy of The Forrester Wave™: Vector Databases, Q3 2024 report.