DBMS > Alibaba Cloud PolarDB vs. Cassandra vs. Fauna

System Properties Comparison Alibaba Cloud PolarDB vs. Cassandra vs. Fauna

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A cloud-native relational database compatible with MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle. Designed for business critical applications.

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Fauna provides a web-native interface, with support for GraphQL and custom business logic that integrates seamlessly with the rest of the serverless ecosystem. The underlying globally distributed storage and compute platform is fast, consistent, and reliable, with a modern security infrastructure.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Relational DBMS
Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	0.52
Rank	#257	Overall
	#118	Relational DBMS

Score	103.86
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	1.55
Rank	#154	Overall
	#26	Document stores
	#14	Graph DBMS
	#72	Relational DBMS
	#13	Time Series DBMS

Website

www.alibabacloud.com/product/polardb

cassandra.apache.org

fauna.com

Technical documentation

www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/polardb/product-overview

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.fauna.com

Developer

Alibaba

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Fauna, Inc.

Initial release

2008

2014

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache version 2

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

Java

Scala

Server operating systems

hosted

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

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

yes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

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

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

Proprietary protocol

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

RESTful HTTP API

Supported programming languages

Java
Python

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C#
Go
Java
JavaScript
Python
Ruby
Scala
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

horizontal partitioning

consistent hashing

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Identity management, authentication, and access control

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

PolarDB, previously ApsaraDB for PolarDB, is a cloud-native relational database designed...
» more

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
» more

Competitive advantages

Webinar: Top Scientists Live: Tech Secrets to Double 11's Success Revealed. White...
» more

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Creating a Robust Cloud-Based Database for Fintech, E-Commerce and Gaming. Learn...
» more

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more

Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more

Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Specification and pricing. You can use either of the following billing methods to...
» more

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

News

How to Build a Crystal Image Search App with Vector Search
25 April 2024

Knowledge Graphs for RAG without a GraphDB
18 April 2024

How Winweb Built its AI Assistant with DataStax Astra DB and LangChain
17 April 2024

Vercel + Astra DB: Get Data into Your GenAI Apps Fast
16 April 2024

Simplifying Agent Development with Astra DB Connector for Vertex AI Search
11 April 2024

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.