The local mode is similar to JVM caching using a HashMap. Data is local to the node and not distributed to any other nodes of the cluster. The following are the benefits of the local mode:

• Fastest data access as there is no need for network operations
• Fastest data modification 

The main drawback of this approach is if there is more than one JVM that needs to access the same data, then more than one local cache will be created. A local cache is useful for read-only data access where the JVM doesn't need to update any cache elements. Still, a local cache is way better than hashmap-based JVM caches as the local mode offers all the features of an Ignite cache, such as the following:

• Data expiry
• Data eviction 
• ANSI SQL query
• Transaction management