DataStax Drivers for Apache Cassandra VS DataStax DSE Drivers

We are frequently asked:  Should we use the DataStax Driver for DSE ( often referred to as the DSE Driver ) or the DataStax Driver for Apache Cassandra ( often referred to as the OSS Driver )?  What is the Difference?  Which driver performs better? Is DataStax going to continue to support the OSS Drivers?

For DataStax Enterprise users, we recommend to use the DSE Drivers (Java/C++/Python/etc) where features such as Unified Authentication are available.   As you extend your application to use other DSE workloads ( Analytics, Graph, Search etc ), it will be easier to use DSE Drivers in the first place.  Using the DSE Drivers against anything other than DataStax Enterprise server is a violation of the user license.

For OSS Apache Cassandra users, we recommend to use the Drivers for Apache Cassandra (Java/C++/Python/etc) which supports the OSS features

Currently, there are no performance differences between the OSS and DSE Drivers, as DSE Drivers use the same core code as the OSS Drivers

DataStax will continue to support, enhance and fix bugs found in the OSS Drivers