DBMS > BigchainDB vs. Cassandra vs. Datomic vs. FoundationDB

System Properties Comparison BigchainDB vs. Cassandra vs. Datomic vs. FoundationDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

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

Datomic builds on immutable values, supports point-in-time queries and uses 3rd party systems for durability

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

Primary database model

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	0.82
Rank	#212	Overall
	#36	Document stores

Score	103.86
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	1.76
Rank	#145	Overall
	#66	Relational DBMS

Score	1.07
Rank	#188	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#86	Relational DBMS

Website

www.bigchaindb.com

cassandra.apache.org

www.datomic.com

github.com/apple/foundationdb

Technical documentation

bigchaindb.readthedocs.io/en/latest

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.datomic.com

apple.github.io/foundationdb

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Cognitect

FoundationDB

Initial release

2016

2008

2012

2013

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

1.0.6735, June 2023

6.2.28, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

AGPL v3

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

limited edition free

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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.

Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.

Implementation language

Python

Java

Java, Clojure

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support 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.

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

supported in specific SQL layer only

APIs and other access methods

CLI Client
RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol

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

RESTful HTTP API

Supported programming languages

Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Python
Ruby

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Clojure
Java

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transaction Functions

in SQL-layer only

Triggers

yes

By using transaction functions

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Linearizable consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes,with MongoDB ord RethinkDB

yes

using external storage systems (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Couchbase and others)

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

recommended only for testing and development

User concepts

Access control

yes

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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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Licensing and pricing models

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