Platforms Versus Stacks: What’s the Difference?

The difference between a platform and a stack lies in their approach to data architectures, freedom of choice, and flexibility. Platforms provide developers with all necessary features but limit their ability to choose technologies or mix and match components. Stacks, on the other hand, consist of best-of-breed technologies that can be flexibly combined to solve specific problems. An open stack like DataStax's provides a cloud-native architecture for real-time applications with well-defined boundaries for each component, ensuring scalability and robustness. The key advantage of an open stack is the freedom it offers users in terms of choice and integration capabilities.