DBMS > Amazon SimpleDB vs. Cassandra vs. FileMaker vs. Newts vs. RDF4J

System Properties Comparison Amazon SimpleDB vs. Cassandra vs. FileMaker vs. Newts vs. RDF4J

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Hosted simple database service by Amazon, with the data stored in the Amazon Cloud.

There is an unrelated product called SimpleDB developed by Edward Sciore

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

FileMaker is a cross-platform RDBMS that includes a GUI frontend.

Time Series DBMS based on Cassandra

RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	1.88
Rank	#139	Overall
	#24	Key-value stores

Score	103.86
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	49.73
Rank	#20	Overall
	#14	Relational DBMS

Score	0.00
Rank	#396	Overall
	#42	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.71
Rank	#231	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Website

aws.amazon.com/simpledb

cassandra.apache.org

www.claris.com/filemaker

opennms.github.io/newts

rdf4j.org

Technical documentation

docs.aws.amazon.com/simpledb

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

www.claris.com/resources/documentation

github.com/OpenNMS/newts/wiki

rdf4j.org/documentation

Developer

Amazon

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Claris

a subsidiary of Apple

OpenNMS Group

Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.

Initial release

2007

2008

1983

2014

2004

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

19.4.1, November 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

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

Server operating systems

hosted

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

iOS

client part only
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

RDF Schemas

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

A http query request can return the data in XML format

Secondary indexes

yes

All columns are indexed automatically

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

via plugins

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol

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

Filemaker WebDirect
JDBC
ODBC

HTTP REST
Java API

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Erlang
Java
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

PHP

Java

Java
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding must be implemented in the application

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

Sharding

based on Cassandra

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Source-replica replication, warm standby

since Version 14

selectable replication factor

based on Cassandra

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

can be individually decided for each write operation

Eventual Consistency

based on Cassandra
Immediate Consistency

based on Cassandra

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Concurrent data updates can be detected by the application

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

In-memory capabilities

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

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 object

simple rights management via user accounts and connection to external directory services

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

Competitive advantages

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

Typical application scenarios

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

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.