DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. Apache Drill vs. Apache Phoenix vs. FoundationDB vs. QuestDB

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. Apache Drill vs. Apache Phoenix vs. FoundationDB vs. QuestDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Schema-free SQL Query Engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and Cloud Storage

A scale-out RDBMS with evolutionary schema built on Apache HBase

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

A high performance open source SQL database for time series data

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Relational DBMS

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

Score	98.94
Rank	#11	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	1.90
Rank	#126	Overall
	#23	Document stores
	#60	Relational DBMS

Score	1.90
Rank	#125	Overall
	#59	Relational DBMS

Score	0.97
Rank	#191	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#87	Relational DBMS

Score	2.81
Rank	#98	Overall
	#7	Time Series DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

drill.apache.org

phoenix.apache.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

questdb.io

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

drill.apache.org/docs

phoenix.apache.org

apple.github.io/foundationdb

questdb.io/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Apache Software Foundation

FoundationDB

QuestDB Technology Inc

Initial release

2008

2012

2014

2013

2014

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

1.20.3, January 2023

5.0-HBase2, July 2018 and 4.15-HBase1, December 2019

6.2.28, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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

C++

Java (Zero-GC), C++, Rust

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

late-bound, schema-on-read capabilities

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocol

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL SELECT statement is SQL:2003 compliant

yes

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL with time-series extensions

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

JDBC

HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C++

C
C#
C++
Go
Groovy
Java
PHP
Python
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

PostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust

over HTTP

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

in SQL-layer only

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

horizontal partitioning (by timestamps)

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

Source-replica replication with eventual consistency

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Hadoop integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

none

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

ACID for single-table writes

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

through memory mapped files

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Depending on the underlying data source

Access Control Lists (using HBase ACL) for RBAC, integration with Apache Ranger for RBAC & ABAC, multi-tenancy

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Market metrics

Apache 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...
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