DBMS > Apache Impala vs. BigchainDB vs. Cassandra vs. Postgres-XL vs. Rockset

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. BigchainDB vs. Cassandra vs. Postgres-XL vs. Rockset

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

BigchainDB is scalable blockchain database offering decentralization, immutability and native assets

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

A scalable, reliable search and analytics service in the cloud, built on RocksDB

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Document store

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS
Search engine

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

Score	12.45
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	0.85
Rank	#208	Overall
	#35	Document stores

Score	98.83
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	0.53
Rank	#254	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	0.82
Rank	#212	Overall
	#36	Document stores

Website

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

bigchaindb.readthedocs.io/en/latest

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

docs.rockset.com

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Rockset

Initial release

2013

2016

2008

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

2019

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

4.1.3, July 2023

10 R1, October 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

AGPL v3

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Mozilla public license

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

C++

Python

Java

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
macOS

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

dynamic typing

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

XML type, but no XML query functionality

ingestion from XML files supported

Secondary indexes

yes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

all fields are automatically indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

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

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

Read-only SQL queries, including JOINs

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

CLI Client
RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

HTTP REST

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Python
Ruby

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

horizontal partitioning

Automatic sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

MVCC

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes,with MongoDB ord RethinkDB

yes

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, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

yes

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users and organizations can be defined via Rockset console

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

Focus on Creativity, Not Clusters: DataStax Mission Control in Action!
30 May 2024

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

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.