Cache vs. Database: How Architecture Affects Performance

A comprehensive comparison between caches and databases reveals fundamental architectural differences that impact performance. Memcached excels at memory efficiency and pipelined requests, storing 101 million items versus ScyllaDB's 61 million before evictions. However, ScyllaDB achieves higher disk throughput with its direct I/O approach and supports complex data models. The choice depends on workload requirements: simple key-value operations favor Memcached, while complex data models and persistence needs favor databases like ScyllaDB. Both systems can maximize hardware utilization with predictably low latencies when properly configured.