DBMS > Cassandra vs. Couchbase vs. Datastax Enterprise vs. IRONdb vs. NuoDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Couchbase vs. Datastax Enterprise vs. IRONdb vs. NuoDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

IRONdb seems to be discontinued. Therefore it is excluded from the DB-Engines Ranking.

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is the always-on, scalable data platform built on Apache Cassandra and designed for hybrid Cloud. DSE integrates graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring into a unified platform.

A distributed Time Series DBMS with a focus on scalability, fault tolerance and operational simplicity

NuoDB is a webscale distributed database that supports SQL and ACID transactions

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Key-value store

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

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Search engine
Vector DBMS

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

Score	103.86
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	18.46
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	6.31
Rank	#57	Overall
	#4	Wide column stores

Score	0.99
Rank	#195	Overall
	#92	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.couchbase.com

www.datastax.com/products/datastax-enterprise

www.circonus.com/solutions/time-series-database/

www.3ds.com/nuodb-distributed-sql-database

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.couchbase.com

docs.datastax.com

docs.circonus.com/irondb/category/getting-started

doc.nuodb.com

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Couchbase, Inc.

DataStax

Circonus LLC.

Dassault Systèmes

originally NuoDB, Inc.

Initial release

2008

2011

2017

2013

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

Server: 7.2, June 2023; Mobile: 3.1, March 2022; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), June 2023

6.8, April 2020

V0.10.20, January 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

commercial

limited edition free

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.

Datastax Astra DB: Astra DB simplifies cloud-native Cassandra application development for your apps, microservices and functions. Deploy in minutes on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and have it managed for you by the experts, with serverless, pay-as-you-go pricing.

Implementation language

Java

C, C++, Go and Erlang

Java

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X

Linux

hosted

Amazon EC2, Windows Azure, SoftLayer
Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

text, numeric, histograms

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

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL); Spark SQL

SQL-like query language (Circonus Analytics Query Language: CAQL)

yes

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

CLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data

Proprietary protocol

CQL (Cassandra Query Language)
TinkerPop Gremlin

with DSE Graph

HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

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
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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

.Net
C
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

yes, in Lua

Java, SQL

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Automatic, metric affinity per node

data is dynamically stored/cached on the nodes where it is read/written

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

configurable replication factor, datacenter aware, advanced replication for edge computing

configurable replication factor, datacenter aware

yes

Managed transparently by NuoDB

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

Immediate Consistency
Tunable Consistency

consistency level can be individually decided with each write operation

Immediate consistency per node, eventual consistency across nodes

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

tunable commit protocol

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC

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

yes

Temporary table

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Standard SQL roles/ privileges, Administrative Users

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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DataStax Enterprise is scale-out data infrastructure for enterprises that need to...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Supporting the following application requirements: Zero downtime - Built on Apache...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Applications that must be massively and linearly scalable with 100% uptime and able...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Capital One, Cisco, Comcast, eBay, McDonald's, Microsoft, Safeway, Sony, UBS, and...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Among the Forbes 100 Most Innovative Companies, DataStax is trusted by 5 of the top...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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Annual subscription
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