Get started with DataStax drivers

The DataStax drivers support application development with Astra DB, Apache Cassandra®, DataStax Enterprise (DSE), and Hyper-Converged Database (HCD).

This documentation provides guidance on application development with DataStax drivers, including driver compatibility, best practices, connection methods, query submission, and error handling.

Use this documentation in conjunction with the documentation for your chosen driver and database product.

DataStax driver languages

For supported programming languages and version compatibility, see Compatibility and support for DataStax drivers.

DataStax driver packages

For information about installing and using drivers, see Compatibility and support for DataStax drivers.

DataStax driver features

The DataStax drivers support features such as the following:

Specific features and capabilities vary by driver language, driver version, and database product. DataStax recommends, whenever possible, that you use the latest version of your chosen driver to access the most recent features and improvements.

This documentation describes general features and capabilities of the DataStax drivers. You must refer to your chosen driver’s documentation for specific information about supported features and capabilities, including limitations, configuration details, and usage instructions.

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) workloads

DSE supports several workload types:

  • Transactional (Cassandra-only)

  • Search

  • Analytics

  • Graph

The DataStax drivers support most of these workloads natively, simplifying applications that run Transactional, Search, and Graph queries alongside one another.

The DataStax drivers in this guide do not support DSE Analytics queries. The access patterns in analytics use cases are different than the access patterns used by the other workloads. The ODBC and JDBC drivers for DSE Analytics and the DSE Spark Cassandra Connector are typically used with the DSE drivers for analytics applications.

For more about workloads, see Working with multi-workload clusters.

Was this helpful?

Give Feedback

How can we improve the documentation?

© 2025 DataStax | Privacy policy | Terms of use | Manage Privacy Choices

Apache, Apache Cassandra, Cassandra, Apache Tomcat, Tomcat, Apache Lucene, Apache Solr, Apache Hadoop, Hadoop, Apache Pulsar, Pulsar, Apache Spark, Spark, Apache TinkerPop, TinkerPop, Apache Kafka and Kafka are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation or its subsidiaries in Canada, the United States and/or other countries. Kubernetes is the registered trademark of the Linux Foundation.

General Inquiries: +1 (650) 389-6000, info@datastax.com