DBMS > Amazon DynamoDB vs. CouchDB vs. Datomic vs. ScyllaDB

System Properties Comparison Amazon DynamoDB vs. CouchDB vs. Datomic vs. ScyllaDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Hosted, scalable database service by Amazon with the data stored in Amazons cloud

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

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

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Primary database model

Document store
Key-value store

Document store

Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Key-value store

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

Score	74.45
Rank	#17	Overall
	#3	Document stores
	#2	Key-value stores

Score	8.30
Rank	#47	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	1.66
Rank	#144	Overall
	#66	Relational DBMS

Score	4.08
Rank	#76	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Website

aws.amazon.com/dynamodb

couchdb.apache.org

www.datomic.com

www.scylladb.com

Technical documentation

docs.aws.amazon.com/dynamodb

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

docs.datomic.com

docs.scylladb.com

Developer

Amazon

Apache Software Foundation

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

Cognitect

ScyllaDB

Initial release

2012

2005

2012

2015

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

1.0.7075, December 2023

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free tier for a limited amount of database operations

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

limited edition free

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

Erlang

Java, Clojure

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

cluster global secondary indices

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

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

Supported programming languages

.Net
ColdFusion
Erlang
Groovy
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

Clojure
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

View functions in JavaScript

yes

Transaction Functions

yes, Lua

Triggers

yes

by integration with AWS Lambda

yes

By using transaction functions

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

may be implemented via Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR)

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be specified for read operations

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

ACID across one or more tables within a single AWS account and region

atomic operations within a single document possible

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

yes

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users and roles can be defined via the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Access rights for users can be defined per object

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

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