DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. CockroachDB vs. Lovefield vs. Memcached vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. CockroachDB vs. Lovefield vs. Memcached vs. Sphinx

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

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.

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

In-memory key-value store, originally intended for caching

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

Primary database model

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	4.74
Rank	#67	Overall
	#36	Relational DBMS

Score	0.22
Rank	#306	Overall
	#138	Relational DBMS

Score	16.84
Rank	#32	Overall
	#4	Key-value stores

Score	5.97
Rank	#56	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.cockroachlabs.com

google.github.io/lovefield

www.memcached.org

sphinxsearch.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

www.cockroachlabs.com/docs

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki

sphinxsearch.com/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Cockroach Labs

Google

Danga Interactive

originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournal

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

Initial release

2008

2015

2014

2003

2001

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

24.1.0, May 2024

2.1.12, February 2017

1.6.29, June 2024

3.5.1, February 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0, commercial license available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

BSD license

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence available

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

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

yes

schema-free

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.

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

full-text index on all search fields

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes, wire compatible with PostgreSQL

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

JDBC

Proprietary protocol

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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

JavaScript

.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Triggers

yes

Using read-only observers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

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

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication using RAFT

none

Repcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallity

none

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

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

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Role-based access control

yes

using SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocol

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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