# Which snitch or replication strategy should I use?

**URL:** <https://forum.scylladb.com/t/which-snitch-or-replication-strategy-should-i-use/1233>\
**Category:** ScyllaDB\
**Created:** [January 25, 2024, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/which-snitch-or-replication-strategy-should-i-use/1233 "2024-01-25T11:23:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Anna](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/anna/32/48_2.png) [@Anna](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Anna)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/which-snitch-or-replication-strategy-should-i-use/1233/1 "2024-01-25T11:23:06Z")

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Can I use SimpleSnitch and SimpleStrategy if I have a single datacenter?

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**Author:** ![roy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/roy/32/576_2.png) [@roy](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/roy)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/which-snitch-or-replication-strategy-should-i-use/1233/2 "2024-01-25T14:04:03Z")

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One should always use “NetworkTopologyStrategy” as it saves you from troubles later.  
I think we even wants/wanted to deprecate SimpleStrategy.

Regarding Snitch, it depends where you run your cluster. e.g. AWS, GCP and Azure have special snitches.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Guy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/guy/32/9_2.png) [@Guy](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Guy)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 6:53am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/which-snitch-or-replication-strategy-should-i-use/1233/3 "2026-05-05T06:53:13Z")

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The general recommendation is to always use the NetworkTopologyStrategy and:

- Ec2XXX snitch on AWS based clusters
- GossipingPropertyFileSnitch in all other cases

You can learn more about Snitches [here](https://docs.scylladb.com/manual/master/operating-scylla/system-configuration/snitch.html).

It is **not** recommended to use SimpleSnitch in any case, and it will probably be deprecated in the future.

Using an incorrect snitch-strategy combination may cause different types of errors, for example:

`Unavailable: code=1000 [Unavailable exception] message=“Cannot achieve consistency level for cl LOCAL_ONE. Requires 1, alive 0” info={‘required_replicas’: 1, ‘alive_replicas’: 0, ‘consistency’: ‘LOCAL_ONE’}`

If you see this error, make sure that you are not using a SimpleSnitch in your cluster configuration in conjunction with some DC-aware replication strategy.

Also, make sure that you edit the cassandra-rackdc.properties file and that your data center names are configured correctly. You can see the names using the [nodetool](https://docs.scylladb.com/manual/stable/operating-scylla/nodetool.html) status command.