title: Why don't you start off with a "single & small" Cassandra server as you usually do it with MySQL?
body: <p>For any website just starting out, the load initially is minimal &amp; grows with a  slow pace initially. People usually start with their MySQL based sites with a single server(***that too a VPS not a dedicated server) running as both app server as well as DB server &amp; usually get too far with this setup &amp; only as they feel the need they separate the DB from the app server giving it a separate VPS server. This is what a start up expects the things to be while planning about resources procurement.</p>
  
  <p>But so far what I have seen, it's something very different with Cassandra. People usually recommend starting out with atleast a 3 node cluster, (on dedicated servers) with lots &amp; lots of RAM. 4GB or 8GB RAM is what they suggest to start with. So is it that Cassandra requires more hardware resources in comparison to MySQL,  for a website to deliver similar performance, serve similar load/ traffic &amp; same amount of data. I understand about higher storage requirements of Cassandra due to replication but what about other hardware resources ? </p>
  
  <p>Can't we start off with Cassandra based apps just like MySQL. Starting with 1 or 2 VPS &amp; adding more whenever there's a need ?</p>
  
  <h1>Edit:</h1>
  
  <p>I don't want to compare apples with oranges. I just want to know how much more dangerous situation I may be in when I start out with a single node VPS based cassandra installation Vs a single node VPS based MySQL installation. Difference between these two situations. Are cassandra servers more prone to be unavailable than MySQL servers ? What is bad if I put tomcat too along with Cassandra as people use LAMP stack on single server.</p>