DBMS > Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Datastore vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J
System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Datastore vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J
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| Name | Cassandra Xexclude from comparison | Google Cloud Datastore Xexclude from comparison | Neo4j Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | RDF4J  formerly known as Sesame Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB Optimized for write access | Automatically scaling NoSQL Database as a Service (DBaaS) on the Google Cloud Platform | Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings | Widely used open source RDBMS Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL | RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary database model | Wide column store | Document store | Graph DBMS | Relational DBMS with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module. | RDF store | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Vector DBMS starting with release V5 | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | cassandra.apache.org | cloud.google.com/datastore | neo4j.com | www.postgresql.org | rdf4j.org | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest | cloud.google.com/datastore/docs | neo4j.com/docs | www.postgresql.org/docs | rdf4j.org/documentation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Apache Software Foundation Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook | Neo4j, Inc. | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 2008 | 2008 | 2007 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | 2004 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 4.1.3, July 2023 | 5.19, April 2024 | 16.3, May 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | Open Source Apache version 2 | commercial | Open Source GPL version3, commercial licenses available | Open Source BSD | Open Source Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud-based only Only available as a cloud service | no | yes | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. | Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers. |
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| Implementation language | Java | Java, Scala | C | Java | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server operating systems | BSD Linux OS X Windows | hosted | Linux Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database. OS X Solaris Windows | FreeBSD HP-UX Linux NetBSD OpenBSD OS X Solaris Unix Windows | Linux OS X Unix Windows | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | schema-free | schema-free | schema-free and schema-optional | yes | yes RDF Schemas | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | yes, details here | yes | yes | 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. | no | no | yes specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary indexes | restricted only equality queries, not always the best performing solution | yes | yes pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SQL Support of SQL | SQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL) | SQL-like query language (GQL) | no | yes standard with numerous extensions | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | Proprietary protocol CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language) Thrift | gRPC (using protocol buffers) API RESTful HTTP/JSON API | Bolt protocol Cypher query language Java API Neo4j-OGM Object Graph MapperRESTful HTTP API Spring Data Neo4j TinkerPop 3 | ADO.NET JDBC native C library ODBC streaming API for large objects | Java API RIO RDF Input/OutputSail API SeRQL Sesame RDF Query LanguageSesame REST HTTP Protocol SPARQL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supported programming languages | C# C++ Clojure Erlang Go Haskell Java JavaScript Node.jsPerl PHP Python Ruby Scala | .Net Go Java JavaScript (Node.js) PHP Python Ruby | .Net Clojure Elixir Go Groovy Haskell Java JavaScript Perl PHP Python Ruby Scala | .Net C C++ Delphi Java JDBCJavaScript (Node.js) Perl PHP Python Tcl | Java PHP Python | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | no | using Google App Engine | yes User defined Procedures and Functions | user defined functions realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc. | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Triggers | yes | Callbacks using the Google Apps Engine | yes via event handler | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Partitioning methods Methods for storing different data on different nodes | Sharding no "single point of failure" | Sharding | yes using Neo4j Fabric | partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash | none | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Replication methods Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes | selectable replication factor Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible | Multi-source replication using Paxos | Causal Clustering using Raft protocol available in in Enterprise Version only | Source-replica replication other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions | none | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | yes | yes using Google Cloud Dataflow | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consistency concepts Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system | Eventual Consistency Immediate Consistency can be individually decided for each write operation | Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on type of query and configuration Strong Consistency is default for entity lookups and queries within an Entity Group (but can instead be made eventually consistent). Other queries are always eventual consistent. | Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode | Immediate Consistency | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | no | yes via ReferenceProperties or Ancestor paths | yes Relationships in graphs | yes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transaction concepts Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data | no Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations | ACID Serializable Isolation within Transactions, Read Committed outside of Transactions | ACID | ACID | ACID Isolation support depends on the API used | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes in-memory storage is supported as well | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-memory capabilities Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only. | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User concepts Access control | Access rights for users can be defined per object | Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) | Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos) | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More information provided by the system vendor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cassandra | Google Cloud Datastore | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | RDF4J formerly known as Sesame | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Specific characteristics | Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well... » more | Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Competitive advantages | No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for... » more | Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typical application scenarios | Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product... » more | Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Key customers | Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best... » more | Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Market metrics | Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100. » more | Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Licensing and pricing models | Apache license Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available... » more | GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| News | GitHub Copilot + DataStax Astra DB: Build GenAI Apps 100x Faster Tips and Tricks for the DataStax Astra CLI How to Build a Crystal Image Search App with Vector Search Knowledge Graphs for RAG without a GraphDB | How to Configure Neo4j Aura With AWS PrivateLink This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, GraphRAG, GraphQL, Chatbot and more Neo4j Joins the Connect with Confluent Partner Program 10 Inspiring Projects to Spark Your NODES 2024 Presentation New Security Feature in Neo4j Aura: Customer Managed Keys | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| More resources | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cassandra | Google Cloud Datastore | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | RDF4J formerly known as Sesame | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DB-Engines blog posts | Cassandra keeps climbing the ranks of the DB-Engines Ranking Oracle is the DBMS of the Year Winners, losers and an attractive newcomer in Novembers DB-Engines ranking | Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023 Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Conferences, events and webinars | Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recent citations in the news | Microsoft Build 2024: Cosmos DB for NoSQL gets vector search Why Apache Cassandra 5.0 Is a Game-Changer for Developers Cassandra is the “best f*cking database for gen AI,” says DataStax CEO How Uber Optimized Cassandra Operations At Scale Here's What to Know About Apache Cassandra 5.0 provided by Google News | Google Cloud Stops Exit Fees BigID Data Intelligence Platform Now Available on Google Cloud Marketplace Inside Google’s strategic move to eliminate customer cloud data transfer fees Google says it'll stop charging fees to transfer data out of Google Cloud What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget provided by Google News | Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance GenAI and Data Solutions USA - English - India - English Neo4j CTO says new Graph Query Language standard will have 'massive ripple effects' Neo4j Is Planning IPO on Nasdaq, Largest Owner Greenbridge Says Neo4j Empowers Syracuse University with $250K Grant to Tackle Misinformation in 2024 Elections Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure provided by Google News | At Build, Microsoft Fabric, PostgreSQL and Cosmos DB get AI enhancements Nutanix partners with EDB to fit database service for AI – Blocks and Files Nutanix and EDB Partner to Deliver a Modern Data Platform Let PostgreSQL Pick An Index For You Continuously replicate Amazon DynamoDB changes to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL using AWS Lambda | Amazon ... provided by Google News | GraphDB Goes Open Source provided by Google News | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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