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DBMS > Cassandra vs. FoundationDB vs. Memcached vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. FoundationDB vs. Memcached vs. Snowflake

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonFoundationDB  Xexclude from comparisonMemcached  Xexclude from comparisonSnowflake  Xexclude from comparison
Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessOrdered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.In-memory key-value store, originally intended for cachingCloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data
Primary database modelWide column storeDocument store infosupported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS infosupported via specific SQL-layer
Key-value storeRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score98.83
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score1.06
Rank#185  Overall
#31  Document stores
#28  Key-value stores
#85  Relational DBMS
Score18.08
Rank#32  Overall
#4  Key-value stores
Score130.36
Rank#8  Overall
#5  Relational DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orggithub.com/­apple/­foundationdbwww.memcached.orgwww.snowflake.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestapple.github.io/­foundationdbgithub.com/­memcached/­memcached/­wikidocs.snowflake.net/­manuals/­index.html
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookFoundationDBDanga Interactive infooriginally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournalSnowflake Computing Inc.
Initial release2008201320032014
Current release4.1.3, July 20236.2.28, November 20201.6.27, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2Open Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoBSD licensecommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononoyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.
Implementation languageJavaC++C
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
hosted
Data schemeschema-freeschema-free infosome layers support schemasschema-freeyes infosupport of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesno infosome layers support typingnoyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.noyes
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionnono
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)supported in specific SQL layer onlynoyes
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
Proprietary protocolCLI Client
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift
.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoin SQL-layer onlynouser defined functions
Triggersyesnonono infosimilar concept for controling cloud resources
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"Shardingnoneyes
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleyesnone infoRepcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallityyes
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Linearizable consistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoin SQL-layer onlynoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesnoyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectnoyes infousing SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocolUsers with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraFoundationDBMemcachedSnowflake
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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