DBMS > Altibase vs. Cassandra vs. FoundationDB vs. jBASE vs. ScyllaDB

System Properties Comparison Altibase vs. Cassandra vs. FoundationDB vs. jBASE vs. ScyllaDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

An enterprise grade, high-performance RDBMS

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

A robust multi-value DBMS comprising development tools and middleware

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Multivalue DBMS

Wide column store

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Key-value store

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

Score	1.02
Rank	#189	Overall
	#88	Relational DBMS

Score	98.83
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	1.06
Rank	#185	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#85	Relational DBMS

Score	1.49
Rank	#156	Overall
	#3	Multivalue DBMS

Score	4.08
Rank	#76	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Website

altibase.com

cassandra.apache.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.rocketsoftware.com/products/rocket-multivalue-application-development-platform/rocket-jbase

www.scylladb.com

Technical documentation

github.com/ALTIBASE/Documents/tree/master/Manuals

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

apple.github.io/foundationdb

docs.rocketsoftware.com/bundle?labelkey=jbase_5.9

docs.scylladb.com

Developer

Altibase

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

FoundationDB

Rocket Software (formerly Zumasys)

ScyllaDB

Initial release

1999

2008

2013

1991

2015

Current release

v7.3, 2023, August 2023

4.1.3, July 2023

6.2.28, November 2020

5.7

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open source edition discontinued with March 2023

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Java

C++

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
Linux
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

optional

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

cluster global secondary indices

SQL

Support of SQL

ANSI SQL-92

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

supported in specific SQL layer only

Embedded SQL for jBASE in BASIC

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol

Proprietary protocol

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

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
SOAP-based API

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

Supported programming languages

C
C++
Java

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

.Net
Basic
Jabbascript
Java

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

stored procedures and stored functions

in SQL-layer only

yes

yes, Lua

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

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

Linearizable consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

in SQL-layer only

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

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

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

Access rights for users can be defined per object

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

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

ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

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

ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
» more

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