DBMS > Cassandra vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Kdb vs. LokiJS vs. Microsoft Access

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Kdb vs. LokiJS vs. Microsoft Access

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.

High performance Time Series DBMS

In-memory JavaScript DBMS

Microsoft Access combines a backend RDBMS (JET / ACE Engine) with a GUI frontend for data manipulation and queries.

The Access frontend is often used for accessing other datasources (DBMS, Excel, etc.)

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

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

Score	0.43
Rank	#264	Overall
	#42	Document stores

Score	104.92
Rank	#11	Overall
	#8	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

kx.com

github.com/techfort/LokiJS

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

firebase.google.com/docs/database

code.kx.com

techfort.github.io/LokiJS

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Microsoft

Initial release

2008

2012

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

2014

1992

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

3.6, May 2018

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free 32-bit version

Open Source

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

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

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

but not compliant to any SQL standard

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

JavaScript API

ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

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

JavaScript

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

user defined functions

View functions in JavaScript

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

with views

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

horizontal partitioning

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Source-replica replication

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

similar paradigm used for internal processing

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

Immediate Consistency

none

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

atomic operations within a single collection possible

ACID

but no files for transaction logging

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Serialization of a DB in a Node.JS/Cordova/PhoneGap environment. Usage of the IndexedDB-API in a browser.

yes

but no files for transaction logging

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

rights management via user accounts

a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003

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...
» more

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...
» more

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
» more

Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
» more

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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