DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Lovefield vs. Tigris

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Lovefield vs. Tigris

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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.

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

A horizontally scalable, ACID transactional, document database available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Document store
Key-value store
Search engine
Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	98.94
Rank	#11	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	2.69
Rank	#101	Overall
	#51	Relational DBMS

Score	0.22
Rank	#306	Overall
	#138	Relational DBMS

Score	0.05
Rank	#359	Overall
	#50	Document stores
	#52	Key-value stores
	#23	Search engines
	#37	Time Series DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

cloud.google.com/spanner

google.github.io/lovefield

www.tigrisdata.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

www.tigrisdata.com/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

Tigris Data, Inc.

Initial release

2008

2017

2014

2022

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

2.1.12, February 2017

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Apache Version 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

JavaScript

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

Linux
macOS
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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)

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

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

CLI Client
gRPC
RESTful HTTP 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

JavaScript

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Triggers

yes

Using read-only observers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

none

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.

none

yes

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

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

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes, using FoundationDB

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

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)

Access rights for users and roles

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

Apache 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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