DBMS > Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. Prometheus

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. Prometheus

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

A horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

A robust multi-value DBMS comprising development tools and middleware

Open-source Time Series DBMS and monitoring system

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Multivalue DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	2.89
Rank	#103	Overall
	#52	Relational DBMS

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	1.41
Rank	#159	Overall
	#3	Multivalue DBMS

Score	8.42
Rank	#47	Overall
	#2	Time Series DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.ibm.com/products/db2

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

prometheus.io

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

docs.rocketsoftware.com/bundle?labelkey=jbase_5.9

prometheus.io/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

IBM

Rocket Software (formerly Zumasys)

Initial release

2008

2017

1983

host version

1991

2015

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

12.1, October 2016

5.7

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free version is available

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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

C and C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
Linux
Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

optional

Numeric data only

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.

yes

Import of XML data possible

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)

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

yes

Embedded SQL for jBASE in BASIC

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC

At present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
SOAP-based API

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net
Basic
Jabbascript
Java

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes

by Federation

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

none

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

by using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

Competitive advantages

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

Typical application scenarios

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

Key customers

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

Market metrics

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

Licensing and pricing models

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

News

GitHub Copilot + DataStax Astra DB: Build GenAI Apps 100x Faster
21 May 2024

Empowering On-Premises Deployments with Generative AI: Introducing Vector Search for a Self-Managed Modern Architecture
15 May 2024

Tips and Tricks for the DataStax Astra CLI
7 May 2024

How to Build a Crystal Image Search App with Vector Search
25 April 2024

Knowledge Graphs for RAG without a GraphDB
18 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.