DBMS > Apache Impala vs. GridGain vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. OrientDB vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. GridGain vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. OrientDB vs. Snowflake

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

GridGain is an in-memory computing platform, built on Apache Ignite

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Multi-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	12.45
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	1.55
Rank	#150	Overall
	#26	Key-value stores
	#70	Relational DBMS

Score	27.71
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	3.25
Rank	#89	Overall
	#16	Document stores
	#6	Graph DBMS
	#13	Key-value stores

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Website

impala.apache.org

www.gridgain.com

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

orientdb.org

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

www.gridgain.com/docs/index.html

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

www.orientdb.com/docs/last/index.html

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

GridGain Systems, Inc.

Microsoft

OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAP

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2013

2007

2014

2010

2014

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

GridGain 8.5.1

3.2.29, March 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

commercial

Open Source

Apache version 2

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.

Implementation language

C++

Java, C++, .Net

Java

Server operating systems

Linux

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

hosted

All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Schema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

ANSI-99 for query and DML statements, subset of DDL

SQL-like query language

SQL-like query language, no joins

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

HDFS API
Hibernate
JCache
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C#
C++
Java
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

.Net
C
C#
C++
Clojure
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

yes (compute grid and cache interceptors can be used instead)

JavaScript

Java, Javascript

user defined functions

Triggers

yes (cache interceptors and events)

JavaScript

Hooks

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

yes (replicated cache)

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Multi-source replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes (compute grid and hadoop accelerator)

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

could be achieved with distributed queries

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

relationship in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

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

Security Hooks for custom implementations

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurable

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

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