DBMS > Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Firestore vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB
System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Firestore vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB
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| Name | Cassandra Xexclude from comparison | Google Cloud Firestore Xexclude from comparison | Neo4j Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | RethinkDB Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB  Optimized for write access | Cloud Firestore is an auto-scaling document database for storing, syncing, and querying data for mobile and web apps. It offers seamless integration with other Firebase and Google Cloud Platform products. | 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 | DBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. | Document store | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Vector DBMS starting with release V5 | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | Spatial DBMS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | cassandra.apache.org | firebase.google.com/products/firestore | neo4j.com | www.postgresql.org | rethinkdb.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest | firebase.google.com/docs/firestore | neo4j.com/docs | www.postgresql.org/docs | rethinkdb.com/docs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Apache Software Foundation Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook | Neo4j, Inc. | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | The Linux Foundation since July 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 2008 | 2017 | 2007 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 4.1.3, July 2023 | 5.20, May 2024 | 16.3, May 2024 | 2.4.1, August 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | Open Source Apache version 2 | commercial | Open Source GPL version3, commercial licenses available | Open Source BSD | Open Source Apache Version 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | C++ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 Windows | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | schema-free | schema-free | schema-free and schema-optional | yes | schema-free | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes string, binary, float, bool, date, geometry | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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) | no | no | yes standard with numerous extensions | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | Proprietary protocol CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language) Thrift | Android gRPC (using protocol buffers) API iOS JavaScript API RESTful HTTP 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 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supported programming languages | C# C++ Clojure Erlang Go Haskell Java JavaScript Node.jsPerl PHP Python Ruby Scala | Go Java JavaScript JavaScript (Node.js) Objective-C Python | .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 | C community-supported driver C# community-supported driverC++ community-supported driverClojure community-supported driverDart community-supported driverErlang community-supported driverGo community-supported driverHaskell community-supported driverJava official driverJavaScript (Node.js) official driverLisp community-supported driverLua community-supported driverObjective-C community-supported driverPerl community-supported driverPHP community-supported driverPython official driverRuby official driverScala community-supported driver | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | no | yes, Firebase Rules & Cloud Functions | yes User defined Procedures and Functions | user defined functions realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Triggers | yes | yes, with Cloud Functions | yes via event handler | yes | Client-side triggers through changefeeds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | Sharding range based | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Replication methods Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes | selectable replication factor Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible | Multi-source replication | Causal Clustering using Raft protocol available in in Enterprise Version only | Source-replica replication other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions | Source-replica replication | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | yes | Using Cloud Dataflow | no | no | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consistency concepts Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system | Eventual Consistency Immediate Consistency can be individually decided for each write operation | Immediate Consistency | Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | no | no | yes Relationships in graphs | yes | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transaction concepts Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data | no Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations | yes | ACID | ACID | Atomic single-document operations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes MVCC based | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. Security Rules for 3rd party authentication using Firebase Auth. | Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos) | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | yes users and table-level permissions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More information provided by the system vendor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cassandra | Google Cloud Firestore | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | RethinkDB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | An Introduction to David Jones-Gilardi, Developer Relations Introducing Tejas Kumar, Developer Relations Engineer Indexing All of Wikipedia on a Laptop An Introduction to Phil Nash, Developer Relations Focus on Creativity, Not Clusters: DataStax Mission Control in Action! | Neo4j-Databricks Connector Delivers Deeper Insights, Faster GenAI Development This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, Testing, Knowledge Graph, GenAI and more Neo4j and Snowflake Bring Graph Data Science Into the AI Data Cloud RDF vs. Property Graphs: Choosing the Right Approach for Implementing a Knowledge Graph This Week in Neo4j: Importing Data, NODES, GenAI, Going Meta and more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 3rd parties | CData: Connect to Big Data & NoSQL through standard Drivers. » more Cassandra Forward event: Want to level up your Cassandra game? Watch now replays of the March 2023 sessions. » more | CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details. » more Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL » more Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development. » more SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more. » more Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users. » more Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today! » more pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring. » more Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance. » more Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools. » more Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems. » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| More resources | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cassandra | Google Cloud Firestore | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | RethinkDB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | Cloud-based DBMS's popularity grows at high rates | 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 | Meet some database management systems you are likely to hear more about in the future ScyllaDB 6.0 advances open source database scalability Here's What to Know About Apache Cassandra 5.0 How Uber Optimized Cassandra Operations At Scale Microsoft extends life support for aging Apache Cassandra 3.11 database How Zalando migrated their shopping carts to Amazon DynamoDB from Apache Cassandra | Amazon Web Services provided by Google News Google's AI-First Strategy Brings Vector Support To Cloud Databases Realtime vs Cloud Firestore: Which Firebase Database to go? Google's Cloud Firestore is now generally available Google launches Cloud Firestore, a new document database for app developers Google's Cloud-Native NoSQL Database Cloud Firestore Is Now Generally Available provided by Google News Neo4j employs knowledge graphs as part of the AI stack Neo4j graph analytics integrated with Snowflake’s AI cloud Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance GenAI and Data Solutions USA - English - India - English Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Snowflake for Advanced AI Insights & Predictive Analytics provided by Google News Timescale unveils high-performance AI vector database extensions for PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is Now Faster than Pinecone, 75% Cheaper, with New Open Source Extensions PostgreSQL Tutorial: Definition, Commands, & Features A New Era AI Databases: PostgreSQL with pgvectorscale Outperforms Pinecone and Cuts Costs by 75% with New Open-Source Extensions Raise the bar on AI-powered app development with Azure Database for PostgreSQL provided by Google News An introduction to building realtime apps with RethinkDB How to Use RethinkDB with Node.js Applications — SitePoint Stripe acquires team behind NoSQL database startup RethinkDB RethinkDB is dead, and MongoDB isn't what killed it RethinkDB is shutting down, Qt Quick Controls, and Sensory gives developers Alexa voice control—SD Times news ... provided by Google News | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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