DBMS > Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. ScyllaDB

System Properties Comparison Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft SQL Server 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

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Primary database model

Document store
Key-value store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Key-value store

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

Score	74.07
Rank	#17	Overall
	#3	Document stores
	#2	Key-value stores

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	4.75
Rank	#68	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Website

aws.amazon.com/dynamodb

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

www.scylladb.com

Technical documentation

docs.aws.amazon.com/dynamodb

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

docs.scylladb.com

Developer

Amazon

Microsoft

ScyllaDB

Initial release

2012

2014

1989

2015

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free tier for a limited amount of database operations

commercial

restricted free version is available

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

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

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

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

cluster global secondary indices

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

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

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

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

JavaScript

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

yes, Lua

Triggers

yes

by integration with AWS Lambda

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

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)

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be specified for read operations

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

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

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

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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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