DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. BigchainDB vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. BigchainDB vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

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

Cloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.

A containerised multi-model DBMS, interoperability and analytics data platform with wide capabilities for vertical and horizontal scalability

An in-memory SQL relational database that delivers microsecond response and high throughput for OLTP applications. TimesTen can be deployed as a standalone database or as a cache to a backend Oracle database.

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Document store
Key-value store
Object oriented DBMS
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	98.94
Rank	#11	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	0.76
Rank	#216	Overall
	#36	Document stores

Score	13.60
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	2.98
Rank	#91	Overall
	#17	Document stores
	#14	Key-value stores
	#1	Object oriented DBMS
	#49	Relational DBMS

Score	1.26
Rank	#164	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.bigchaindb.com

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

www.intersystems.com/products/intersystems-iris

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

bigchaindb.readthedocs.io/en/latest

firebase.google.com/docs/database

docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls

docs.oracle.com/en/database/other-databases/timesten/index.html

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

acquired by Google 2014

InterSystems

Oracle

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

2008

2016

2012

2018

1998

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

2023.3, June 2023

Release 22.1

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

AGPL v3

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

Java

Python

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux

hosted

AIX
Linux
macOS
Ubuntu
Windows

IBM AIX Power PC 64-bit
Linux arm64
Linux x86-64
Solaris SPARC 64
Solaris SPARC/x86
Solaris x86-64

Data scheme

schema-free

depending on used data model

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.

yes

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)

yes

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

CLI Client
RESTful HTTP API

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)
Pro*C/C++ programming interfaces
SQL and PL/SQL via JDBC

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Python
Ruby

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C
C++
Java
Node.js
PL/SQL
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

yes

PL/SQL

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

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

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

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

yes

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes,with MongoDB ord RethinkDB

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

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 can be defined per object

yes

yes, based on authentication and database rules

yes

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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InterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform which includes a multi-model...
» more

Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more

Market metrics

Apache 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...
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