DBMS > Cassandra vs. FoundationDB vs. NuoDB vs. UniData,UniVerse vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. FoundationDB vs. NuoDB vs. UniData,UniVerse vs. VoltDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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.

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

NuoDB is a webscale distributed database that supports SQL and ACID transactions

MultiValue database and application server with SQL mapping layer and meta database capabilities

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Multivalue DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	1.03
Rank	#190	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#89	Relational DBMS

Score	0.89
Rank	#198	Overall
	#92	Relational DBMS

Score	3.16
Rank	#97	Overall
	#2	Multivalue DBMS

Score	1.44
Rank	#158	Overall
	#73	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.3ds.com/nuodb-distributed-sql-database

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

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

apple.github.io/foundationdb

doc.nuodb.com

docs.rocketsoftware.com/bundle?cluster=true&labelkey=unidata&labelkey=prod_unidata

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

FoundationDB

Dassault Systèmes

originally NuoDB, Inc.

Rocket Software

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2008

2013

1985

2010

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

6.2.28, November 2020

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

limited edition free

commercial

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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++

Java, C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Amazon EC2, Windows Azure, SoftLayer
Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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.

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)

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

Java API

JPA
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
SOAP-based API

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

.Net
Basic

U2 Basic
C
Java

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

Java, SQL

yes

Java

Triggers

yes

U2 Basic

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

data is dynamically stored/cached on the nodes where it is read/written

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

Managed transparently by NuoDB

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

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

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

tunable commit protocol

ACID

configurable

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

Temporary table

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Standard SQL roles/ privileges, Administrative Users

Access rights according to SQL-standard and operating system based

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

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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