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

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

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.

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.)

Open-Source and Enterprise in-memory Key-Value Store

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
Search engine

Using distributed Lucene

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

Score	103.86
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	15.00
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	0.48
Rank	#262	Overall
	#42	Document stores

Score	105.40
Rank	#11	Overall
	#8	Relational DBMS

Score	0.98
Rank	#196	Overall
	#29	Key-value stores

Website

cassandra.apache.org

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

github.com/techfort/LokiJS

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

www.alachisoft.com/ncache

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

firebase.google.com/docs/database

techfort.github.io/LokiJS

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Microsoft

Alachisoft

Initial release

2008

2012

2014

1992

2005

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

5.3, September 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

Open Source

Enterprise Edition available

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++

C#, .NET, .NET Core, Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

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

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are Lists, Queues, Hashsets, Dictionary and Counter

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

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

but not compliant to any SQL standard

SQL-like query syntax and LINQ for searching the cache. Cache Synchronization with SQL Server using SQL dependency.

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

JavaScript API

ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

IDistributedCache
JCache
LINQ
Proprietary native API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

JavaScript

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

.Net
.Net Core
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

View functions in JavaScript

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

support for stored procedures with SQL-Server CLR

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

yes

Notifications

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

yes, with selectable consistency level

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

none

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Strong Eventual Consistency over WAN with Conflict Resolution using Bridge Topology

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

optimistic locking and pessimistic locking

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

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

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

Authentication to access the cache via Active Directory/LDAP (possible roles: user, administrator)

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
» more

NCache has been the market leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005 . NCache...
» more

Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
» more

NCache is 100% .NET/ .NET Core based which fully supports ASP.NET Core Sessions ,...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more

NCache enables industries like retail, finance, banking IoT, travel, ecommerce, healthcare...
» more

Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more

Bank of America, Citi, Natures Way, Charter Spectrum, Barclays, Henry Schein, GBM,...
» more

Market metrics

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

Market Leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005.
» more

Licensing and pricing models

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

NCache Open Source is free on an as-is basis without any support. NCache Enterprise...
» more

News

How Winweb Built its AI Assistant with DataStax Astra DB and LangChain
17 April 2024

Vercel + Astra DB: Get Data into Your GenAI Apps Fast
16 April 2024

Simplifying Agent Development with Astra DB Connector for Vertex AI Search
11 April 2024

Making Astra DB easier for MongoDB developers
10 April 2024

Empowering Enterprise GenAI: Announcing Luna for RAGStack
10 April 2024

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.