DBMS > Cassandra vs. CouchDB vs. Faircom DB vs. Informix vs. Kdb

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. CouchDB vs. Faircom DB vs. Informix vs. Kdb

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

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

Native high-speed multi-model DBMS for relational and key-value store data simultaneously accessible through SQL and NoSQL APIs.

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

High performance Time Series DBMS

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Relational DBMS

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	0.20
Rank	#318	Overall
	#48	Key-value stores
	#141	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	7.55
Rank	#53	Overall
	#3	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

couchdb.apache.org

www.faircom.com/products/faircom-db

www.ibm.com/products/informix

kx.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

docs.faircom.com/docs/en/UUID-7446ae34-a1a7-c843-c894-d5322e395184.html

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

code.kx.com

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Apache Software Foundation

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

FairCom Corporation

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Initial release

2008

2005

1979

1984

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

3.3.3, December 2023

V12, November 2020

14.10.FC5, November 2020

3.6, May 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Restricted, free version available

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

free 32-bit version

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

Erlang

ANSI C, C++

C, C++ and Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
QNX
SCO
Solaris
VxWorks
Windows

easily portable to other OSs

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

schema free, schema optional, schema required, partial schema,

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, ANSI SQL Types, JSON, typed binary structures

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

via views

yes

table attribute 'grouped'

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes, ANSI SQL with proprietary extensions

yes

SQL-like query language (q)

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

ADO.NET
Direct SQL
JDBC
JPA
ODBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
RESTful MQTT/JSON API
RPC

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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

.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js and browser)
PHP
Python
Visual Basic

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

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

yes

.Net, JavaScript, C/C++

yes

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

with views

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

File partitioning, horizontal partitioning, sharding

Customizable business rules for table partitioning

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, configurable to be parallel or serial, synchronous or asynchronous, uni-directional or bi-directional, ACID-consistent or eventually consistent (with custom conflict resolution).

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

similar paradigm used for internal processing

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Eventual Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Tunable consistency per server, database, table, and transaction

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

tunable from ACID to Eventually Consistent

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Yes, tunable from durable to delayed durability to in-memory

yes

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

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard with additional protections for files

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

rights management via user accounts

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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upon request
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