DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Cassandra vs. JanusGraph vs. ScyllaDB vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Cassandra vs. JanusGraph vs. ScyllaDB vs. Sphinx

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

A Graph DBMS optimized for distributed clusters

It was forked from the latest code base of Titan in January 2017

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Document store

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Key-value store

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

Score	12.45
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	98.83
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	2.02
Rank	#125	Overall
	#12	Graph DBMS

Score	4.08
Rank	#76	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	5.95
Rank	#55	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Website

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.janusgraph.org

docs.scylladb.com

sphinxsearch.com/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Linux Foundation; originally developed as Titan by Aurelius

ScyllaDB

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

Initial release

2013

2008

2017

2015

2001

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

4.1.3, July 2023

0.6.3, February 2023

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

3.5.1, February 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Java

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Linux

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

cluster global secondary indices

yes

full-text index on all search fields

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

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

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

Proprietary protocol

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

Java API
TinkerPop Blueprints
TinkerPop Frames
TinkerPop Gremlin
TinkerPop Rexster

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

Proprietary protocol

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Clojure
Java
Python

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

yes

yes, Lua

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

yes

depending on the used storage backend (e.g. Cassandra, HBase, BerkeleyDB)

Sharding

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

via Faunus, a graph analytics engine

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Supports various storage backends: Cassandra, HBase, Berkeley DB, Akiban, Hazelcast

yes

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

Access rights for users can be defined per object

User authentification and security via Rexster Graph Server

Access rights for users can be defined per object

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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