DBMS > Cassandra vs. Couchbase vs. CouchDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Couchbase vs. CouchDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

A distributed document store with a powerful search engine and in-built operational and analytical capabilities

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Secondary database models

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

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

Score	118.15
Rank	#11	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	28.78
Rank	#30	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	17.02
Rank	#41	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.couchbase.com

couchdb.apache.org

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.couchbase.com

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Couchbase, Inc.

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

Initial release

2008

2011

2005

Current release

4.0.5, July 2022

Server: 7.0, July 2021; Mobile: 3, February 2022; Couchbase Capella, October 2021

3.2.2, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2; Commercial licenses also available

Open Source

Apache version 2

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.
Aiven for Apache Cassandra: Fully managed, open source NoSQL database specifically designed to be highly available, performant, and scalable.

Couchbase Capella: a fully managed database-as-a-service that eliminates database management efforts and reduces cost

Implementation language

Java

C, C++, Go and Erlang

Erlang

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

String, Boolean, Number

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

via views

SQL

Support of SQL

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

Declarative query language (N1QL) that extends ANSI SQL to JSON. First commercial implementation of SQL++.

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Functions and timers in JavaScript

View functions in JavaScript

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
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
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

atomic operations within a single document possible

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

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

Ephemeral buckets

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication

Access rights for users can be defined per database

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Developed as an alternative to traditionally inflexible relational databases, Couchbase...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Couchbase was architected with several differentiated capabilities: Shared-nothing,...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Customer 360 for user profile, session store and data aggregation (Comcast, Equifax,...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Amadeus, AT&T, BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), Carrefour, Cisco, Comcast, Disney,...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Named a leader in the Forrester Wave™: Big Data NoSQL, Q1 2019 Over 10M downloads...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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The Community Edition (CE) of Couchbase Server and Couchbase Mobile are available...
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News

PacketFabric's Anna Claiborne and Dave Ward: Building Strong Networks with Guts and Vision
10 August 2022

Real-World Machine Learning with Apache Cassandra and Apache Spark (Part 2)
2 August 2022

Creating A Safer Internet One Hacker at a Time with Marten Mickos of HackerOne
27 July 2022

Migrating from SQL to NoSQL with Spring PetClinic and Apache Cassandra
26 July 2022

Pulling Real-Time Ethereum Transactions with Web3.js
20 July 2022

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.