Caching Solutions

Question

Has anyone done a thorough comparison of AppFabric and NCache or AppFabric and ScaleOut? We are currently looking to implement either AppFabric, NCache or ScaleOut for distr

Answer 1

As a more mature product, NCache has a number of more advanced caching features that Velocity/AppFabric doesn't have -- check out their website for some "marketing" comparisons.

However, we have had a number of issues troubleshooting NCache and obtaining more visibility from their support/engineering team into certain behaviors of their application. Given that, plus the cost compared to AppFabric, I'm not sure I would recommend NCache at this point -- at least, we're in the process of re-evaluating our caching provider.

My frustration/complaint with Velocity/AppFabric is the the sluggishness in the release schedule. Seems like they were in CTP forever. Certainly Microsoft can crush NCache on price alone. There are now players like NorthScale (memcached) that are entering the fray which I think are also worth considering. A lot depends on what you want to use caching for in your application.