DBMS > Cassandra vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. KairosDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. KairosDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Cloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

A robust multi-value DBMS comprising development tools and middleware

Distributed Time Series DBMS based on Cassandra or H2

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Multivalue DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	1.41
Rank	#159	Overall
	#3	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.62
Rank	#239	Overall
	#20	Time Series DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.rocketsoftware.com/products/rocket-multivalue-application-development-platform/rocket-jbase

github.com/kairosdb/kairosdb

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

firebase.google.com/docs/database

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

docs.rocketsoftware.com/bundle?labelkey=jbase_5.9

kairosdb.github.io

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

acquired by Google 2014

IBM

Rocket Software (formerly Zumasys)

Initial release

2008

2012

1983

host version

1991

2013

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

12.1, October 2016

5.7

1.2.2, November 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free version is available

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.

Implementation language

Java

C and C++

Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
Linux
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

optional

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

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

Embedded SQL for jBASE in BASIC

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
SOAP-based API

Graphite protocol
HTTP REST
Telnet API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net
Basic
Jabbascript
Java

Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

yes

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

based on Cassandra

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes

selectable replication factor

based on Cassandra

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

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Eventual Consistency

based on Cassandra
Immediate Consistency

based on Cassandra

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

yes

ACID

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

yes, based on authentication and database rules

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

simple password-based access control

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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