DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Cassandra vs. CouchDB vs. Datastax Enterprise vs. Teradata Aster

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Cassandra vs. CouchDB vs. Datastax Enterprise vs. Teradata Aster

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Teradata Aster has been integrated into other Teradata systems and therefore will be removed from the DB-Engines ranking.

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is the always-on, scalable data platform built on Apache Cassandra and designed for hybrid Cloud. DSE integrates graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring into a unified platform.

Platform for big data analytics on multistructured data sources and types

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Search engine
Vector DBMS

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	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	5.80
Rank	#60	Overall
	#4	Wide column stores

Website

alasql.org

cassandra.apache.org

couchdb.apache.org

www.datastax.com/products/datastax-enterprise

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

docs.datastax.com

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

DataStax

Teradata

Initial release

2014

2008

2005

2011

2005

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

3.3.3, December 2023

6.8, April 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

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.

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Implementation language

JavaScript

Java

Erlang

Java

Server operating systems

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

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

Flexible Schema (defined schema, partial schema, schema free)

defined schema within the relational store; partial schema or schema free in the Aster File Store

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.

yes

in Aster File Store

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

via views

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)

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL); Spark SQL

yes

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

Proprietary protocol

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

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Proprietary protocol

CQL (Cassandra Query Language)
TinkerPop Gremlin

with DSE Graph

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Java
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

R packages

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

configurable replication factor, datacenter aware, advanced replication for edge computing

yes

Dimension tables are replicated across all nodes in the cluster. The number of replicas for the file store can be configured.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

SQL Map-Reduce Framework

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency
Tunable Consistency

consistency level can be individually decided with each write operation

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Access rights for users can be defined per database

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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DataStax Enterprise is scale-out data infrastructure for enterprises that need to...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Supporting the following application requirements: Zero downtime - Built on Apache...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Applications that must be massively and linearly scalable with 100% uptime and able...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Capital One, Cisco, Comcast, eBay, McDonald's, Microsoft, Safeway, Sony, UBS, and...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Among the Forbes 100 Most Innovative Companies, DataStax is trusted by 5 of the top...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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Annual subscription
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