DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Cassandra vs. Memcached vs. Oracle vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Cassandra vs. Memcached vs. Oracle vs. Snowflake

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

In-memory key-value store, originally intended for caching

Widely used RDBMS

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
RDF store

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Spatial DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Vector DBMS

since Oracle 23

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	19.42
Rank	#32	Overall
	#4	Key-value stores

Score	1236.29
Rank	#1	Overall
	#1	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Website

alasql.org

cassandra.apache.org

www.memcached.org

www.oracle.com/database

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki

docs.oracle.com/en/database

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Danga Interactive

originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournal

Oracle

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2014

2008

2003

1980

2014

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

1.6.25, March 2024

23c, September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

BSD license

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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.

Implementation language

JavaScript

Java

C and C++

Server operating systems

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

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Schemaless in JSON and XML columns

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

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

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

with proprietary extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

Proprietary protocol

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

Proprietary protocol

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Cobol
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Fortran
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Objective C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Tcl
Visual Basic

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

PL/SQL

also stored procedures in Java possible

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

Repcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallity

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

can be realized in PL/SQL

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

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

isolation level can be parameterized

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

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Version 12c introduced the new option 'Oracle Database In-Memory'

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

yes

using SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocol

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Licensing and pricing models

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