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DBMS > Apache Drill vs. Cassandra vs. Microsoft Access vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison Apache Drill vs. Cassandra vs. Microsoft Access vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameApache Drill  Xexclude from comparisonCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Access  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionSchema-free SQL Query Engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and Cloud StorageWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessMicrosoft Access combines a backend RDBMS (JET / ACE Engine) with a GUI frontend for data manipulation and queries. infoThe Access frontend is often used for accessing other datasources (DBMS, Excel, etc.)Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL
Primary database modelDocument store
Relational DBMS
Wide column storeRelational DBMSGraph DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.02
Rank#124  Overall
#22  Document stores
#59  Relational DBMS
Score98.83
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score101.16
Rank#11  Overall
#8  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score636.25
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Websitedrill.apache.orgcassandra.apache.orgwww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­microsoft-365/­accessneo4j.comwww.postgresql.org
Technical documentationdrill.apache.org/­docscassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestdeveloper.microsoft.com/­en-us/­accessneo4j.com/­docswww.postgresql.org/­docs
DeveloperApache Software FoundationApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.PostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developer
Initial release20122008199220071989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL
Current release1.20.3, January 20234.1.3, July 20231902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 20195.20, May 202416.3, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache Version 2Open Source infoApache version 2commercial infoBundled with Microsoft OfficeOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoBSD
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
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Implementation languageJavaC++Java, ScalaC
Server operating systemsLinux
OS X
Windows
BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
Windows infoNot a real database server, but making use of DLLsLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeschema-freeyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyesyes
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.nonoyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesnorestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL SELECT statement is SQL:2003 compliantSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yes infobut not compliant to any SQL standardnoyes infostandard with numerous extensions
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Proprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesC++C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresuser defined functionsnoyes infosince Access 2010 using the ACE-engineyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsuser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.
Triggersnoyesyes infosince Access 2010 using the ACE-engineyes infovia event handleryes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infono "single point of failure"noneyes using Neo4j Fabricpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possiblenoneCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlySource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensions
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesyesnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemnoneEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanono infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACID infobut no files for transaction loggingACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentDepending on the underlying data sourceyesyes infobut no files for transaction loggingyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.Depending on the underlying data sourcenono
User concepts infoAccess controlDepending on the underlying data sourceAccess rights for users can be defined per objectno infoa simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
Apache DrillCassandraMicrosoft AccessNeo4jPostgreSQL
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
» more
Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more
Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more
Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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