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DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Google Cloud Spanner

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Google Cloud Spanner

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameApache Cassandra  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Bigtable  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessGoogle's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.A horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.
Primary database modelWide column storeKey-value store
Wide column store
Relational DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score108.21
Rank#11  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score2.67
Rank#93  Overall
#15  Key-value stores
#6  Wide column stores
Score2.56
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgcloud.google.com/­bigtablecloud.google.com/­spanner
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestcloud.google.com/­bigtable/­docscloud.google.com/­spanner/­docs
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookGoogleGoogle
Initial release200820152017
Current release5.0-rc1, July 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2commercialcommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenoyesyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJava
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
hostedhosted
Data schemeschema-freeschema-freeyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesnoyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.nonono
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionnoyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)noyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnonono
Triggersyesnono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"ShardingSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleInternal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zonesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesyesyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflow
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsAtomic single-row operationsACID infoStrict serializable isolation
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nonono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)
More information provided by the system vendor
Apache CassandraGoogle Cloud BigtableGoogle Cloud Spanner
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More resources
Apache CassandraGoogle Cloud BigtableGoogle Cloud Spanner
Recent citations in the news

Best practices for running Apache Cassandra with Amazon EBS
8 November 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

IBM plans to buy open source Cassandra wrangler DataStax
25 February 2025, theregister.com

New Apache Cassandra 5.0 gives open source NoSQL database a scalability and performance boost
6 September 2024, VentureBeat

Apache Cassandra survey highlights growing adoption for AI workloads
11 November 2024, Blocks and Files

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9 September 2024, techzine.eu

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Google Releases Spanner Graph into General Availability
19 February 2025, infoq.com

New features make Google's Spanner a database for AI
1 August 2024, TechTarget

Google Cloud Spanner gets dual-region configuration option
23 July 2024, InfoWorld

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