DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. Citus vs. CockroachDB vs. FileMaker vs. Heroic

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. Citus vs. CockroachDB vs. FileMaker vs. Heroic

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Scalable hybrid operational and analytics RDBMS for big data use cases based on PostgreSQL

CockroachDB is a distributed database architected for modern cloud applications. It is wire compatible with PostgreSQL and backed by a Key-Value Store, which is either RocksDB or a purpose-built derivative, called Pebble.

FileMaker is a cross-platform RDBMS that includes a GUI frontend.

Time Series DBMS built at Spotify based on Cassandra or Google Cloud Bigtable, and ElasticSearch

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store

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

Score	98.94
Rank	#11	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	2.13
Rank	#117	Overall
	#56	Relational DBMS

Score	4.74
Rank	#67	Overall
	#36	Relational DBMS

Score	45.20
Rank	#20	Overall
	#14	Relational DBMS

Score	0.13
Rank	#335	Overall
	#29	Time Series DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.citusdata.com

www.cockroachlabs.com

www.claris.com/filemaker

github.com/spotify/heroic

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.citusdata.com

www.cockroachlabs.com/docs

www.claris.com/resources/documentation

spotify.github.io/heroic

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Cockroach Labs

Claris

a subsidiary of Apple

Spotify

Initial release

2008

2010

2015

1983

2014

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

8.1, December 2018

24.1.0, May 2024

19.4.1, November 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

AGPL, commercial license also available

Open Source

Apache 2.0, commercial license available

commercial

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

Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux

Linux
macOS
Windows

iOS

client part only
Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

dynamic schema

yes

schema-free

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

specific XML type available, but no XML query functionality

yes

A http query request can return the data in XML format

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

via Elasticsearch

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

standard, with numerous extensions

yes, wire compatible with PostgreSQL

yes

via plugins

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

JDBC

Filemaker WebDirect
JDBC
ODBC

HQL (Heroic Query Language, a JSON-based language)
HTTP API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C#
C++
Clojure
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust

PHP

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

yes

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

horizontal partitioning (by key range)

all tables are translated to an ordered KV store and then broken down into 64MB ranges, which are then used as replicas in RAFT

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Multi-source replication using RAFT

Source-replica replication, warm standby

since Version 14

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

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

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

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.

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Role-based access control

simple rights management via user accounts and connection to external directory services

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

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...
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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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