DBMS > Cassandra vs. Couchbase vs. Google Cloud Datastore vs. InfinityDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Couchbase vs. Google Cloud Datastore vs. InfinityDB

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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 integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

Automatically scaling NoSQL Database as a Service (DBaaS) on the Google Cloud Platform

A Java embedded Key-Value Store which extends the Java Map interface

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Key-value store

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

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

Score	98.83
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	16.59
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	4.36
Rank	#72	Overall
	#12	Document stores

Score	0.08
Rank	#365	Overall
	#55	Key-value stores

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.couchbase.com

cloud.google.com/datastore

boilerbay.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.couchbase.com

cloud.google.com/datastore/docs

boilerbay.com/infinitydb/manual

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Couchbase, Inc.

Google

Boiler Bay Inc.

Initial release

2008

2011

2008

2002

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

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

4.0

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

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

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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

C, C++, Go and Erlang

Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

All OS with a Java VM

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

nested virtual Java Maps, multi-value, logical â€˜tuple spaceâ€™ runtime Schema upgrade

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, details here

yes

all Java primitives, Date, CLOB, BLOB, huge sparse arrays

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

manual creation possible, using inversions based on multi-value capability

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 query language (GQL)

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

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Access via java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentNavigableMap Interface
Proprietary API to InfinityDB ItemSpace (boilerbay.com/docs/ItemSpaceDataStructures.htm)

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

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

Java

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

using Google App Engine

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

Callbacks using the Google Apps Engine

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

none

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 using Paxos

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

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 or Eventual Consistency depending on type of query and configuration

Strong Consistency is default for entity lookups and queries within an Entity Group (but can instead be made eventually consistent). Other queries are always eventual consistent.

Immediate Consistency

READ-COMMITTED or SERIALIZED

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

via ReferenceProperties or Ancestor paths

manual creation possible, using inversions based on multi-value capability

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Serializable Isolation within Transactions, Read Committed outside of Transactions

ACID

Optimistic locking for transactions; no isolation for bulk loads

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.

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. Role-base access control.

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

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

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Licensing and pricing models

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