diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java
index b244997cd7c..aaf60e39bd4 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/CompactingMemStore.java
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ public class CompactingMemStore extends AbstractMemStore {
   public static final String COMPACTING_MEMSTORE_TYPE_KEY =
       "hbase.hregion.compacting.memstore.type";
   public static final String COMPACTING_MEMSTORE_TYPE_DEFAULT =
-      String.valueOf(MemoryCompactionPolicy.NONE);
+      String.valueOf(MemoryCompactionPolicy.BASIC);
   // Default fraction of in-memory-flush size w.r.t. flush-to-disk size
   public static final String IN_MEMORY_FLUSH_THRESHOLD_FACTOR_KEY =
       "hbase.memstore.inmemoryflush.threshold.factor";