DBMS > Apache Impala vs. CouchDB vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j vs. Redis

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. CouchDB vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j vs. Redis

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

Widely used open source RDBMS

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Graph DBMS

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Secondary database models

Document store

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	1083.74
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Website

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

dev.mysql.com/doc

neo4j.com/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Neo4j, Inc.

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Initial release

2013

2005

1995

2007

2009

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

3.3.3, December 2023

8.3.0, January 2024

5.19, April 2024

7.2.4, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

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.

Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C++

Erlang

C and C++

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

Linux

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

with proprietary extensions

with RediSQL module

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

View functions in JavaScript

yes

proprietary syntax

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

via event handler

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

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 database

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

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