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Cassandra's features

1. Cassandra is designed to be always available. Writes never fail. Two read paths are available: high-performance "weak" reads and quorum reads. See ThriftInterface.
2. Cassandra has a rich data model allowing efficient use for many applications beyond simple key/value.
3. Data is automatically replicated to multiple nodes for fault-tolerance. There is support for implementing strategies that replicate across multiple data centers.
4. Elasticity: new nodes can be added to a running cluster while minimizing disruption to existing data.
5. Consistency: Cassandra follows the "eventually consistent" model but includes sophisticated features such as Hinted Handoff and Read Repair to minimize inconsistency windows.
6. Reads and writes in Cassandra are guaranteed to be atomic within a single ColumnFamily.
7. Support for versioning and conflict resolution (with inbuilt policies like "last update wins").

Cassandra is not a relational database. You cannot run SQL queries in Cassandra or write ACID transactions. However, if your application needs high-performance, elastic, scalable, and structured storage try Cassandra!

First steps

1. GettingStarted
2. data model
3. ThriftInterface

Community

IRC

Many of the Cassandra developers and community members hang out on #cassandra on freenode irc: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%23cassandra&nick=yournamehere

Development

1. Jira bug tracker
2. HowToContribute
3. HowToCommit
4. HowToRelease
5. Board Reports