DBMS > Amazon SimpleDB vs. Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Datastore vs. Lovefield vs. Microsoft Azure AI Search

System Properties Comparison Amazon SimpleDB vs. Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Datastore vs. Lovefield vs. Microsoft Azure AI Search

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

Automatically scaling NoSQL Database as a Service (DBaaS) on the Google Cloud Platform

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Search-as-a-service for web and mobile app development

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Vector DBMS

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

Score	1.85
Rank	#138	Overall
	#24	Key-value stores

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	4.47
Rank	#76	Overall
	#12	Document stores

Score	0.29
Rank	#293	Overall
	#133	Relational DBMS

Score	5.59
Rank	#63	Overall
	#7	Search engines

Website

aws.amazon.com/simpledb

cassandra.apache.org

cloud.google.com/datastore

google.github.io/lovefield

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/search

Technical documentation

docs.aws.amazon.com/simpledb

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

cloud.google.com/datastore/docs

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search

Developer

Amazon

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

Microsoft

Initial release

2007

2008

2014

2015

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

2.1.12, February 2017

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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

JavaScript

Server operating systems

hosted

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, details here

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

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)

SQL-like query language (GQL)

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol

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

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

RESTful HTTP API

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

.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

JavaScript

C#
Java
JavaScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

using Google App Engine

Triggers

yes

Callbacks using the Google Apps Engine

Using read-only observers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding must be implemented in the application

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication using Paxos

none

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

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

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on type of query and configuration

Strong Consistency is default for entity lookups and queries within an Entity Group (but can instead be made eventually consistent). Other queries are always eventual consistent.

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

via ReferenceProperties or Ancestor paths

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

Serializable Isolation within Transactions, Read Committed outside of Transactions

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

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

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

yes

using Azure authentication

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 Concide Built its Chat Platform with Enhanced Document Management for Legal Tech Professionals
23 May 2024

Astra Vectorize: Generate Vector Embeddings with 1 Line of Code
22 May 2024

GitHub Copilot + DataStax Astra DB: Build GenAI Apps 100x Faster
21 May 2024

Empowering On-Premises Deployments with Generative AI: Introducing Vector Search for a Self-Managed Modern Architecture
15 May 2024

Tips and Tricks for the DataStax Astra CLI
7 May 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.