DBMS > AlaSQL vs. BigchainDB vs. Cassandra vs. Datomic vs. TiDB

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. BigchainDB vs. Cassandra vs. Datomic vs. TiDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

BigchainDB is scalable blockchain database offering decentralization, immutability and native assets

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Datomic builds on immutable values, supports point-in-time queries and uses 3rd party systems for durability

TiDB is an open source distributed SQL database that supports Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing (HTAP) workloads. It is MySQL compatible and features horizontal scalability, strong consistency, and high availability.

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	0.46
Rank	#260	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#121	Relational DBMS

Score	0.79
Rank	#212	Overall
	#36	Document stores

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	1.59
Rank	#150	Overall
	#69	Relational DBMS

Score	4.66
Rank	#70	Overall
	#38	Relational DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

bigchaindb.readthedocs.io/en/latest

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.datomic.com

docs.pingcap.com/tidb/stable

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Cognitect

PingCAP, Inc.

Initial release

2014

2016

2008

2012

2016

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

1.0.6735, June 2023

8.0.0, March 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

AGPL v3

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

limited edition free

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.

TiDB Cloud: Fully-managed TiDB Service. Bring everything great about TiDB to the cloud.

Implementation language

JavaScript

Python

Java

Java, Clojure

Go, Rust

Server operating systems

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

Linux

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

SQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)

yes

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

CLI Client
RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol

CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift

RESTful HTTP API

GORM
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
SQLAlchemy

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Python
Ruby

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Clojure
Java

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transaction Functions

Triggers

yes

By using transaction functions

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

horizontal partitioning (by key range)

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Using Raft consensus algorithm to ensure data replication with strong consistency among multiple replicas.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

with TiSpark Connector

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

full support since version 6.6

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes,with MongoDB ord RethinkDB

yes

using external storage systems (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Couchbase and others)

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

recommended only for testing and development

User concepts

Access control

yes

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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TiDB is an advanced open-source, distributed SQL database for modern application...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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- HORIZONTAL SCALING : TiDB grants total transparency into your data workloads without...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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TiDB is ideal for transactional applications that require extreme scalability and...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Block, Pinterest, Catalyst, Bolt, Flipkart, Capcom, Shopee (E-commerce), JD Cloud...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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34K+ GitHub stars 5K+ members in TiDB Community Slack 1K+ community contributors...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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TiDB Community : Free open source software (Apache 2.0) TiDB Self-Hosted : Enterprise...
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