DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. MySQL vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. MySQL vs. TimesTen

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.

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

Widely used open source RDBMS

An in-memory SQL relational database that delivers microsecond response and high throughput for OLTP applications. TimesTen can be deployed as a standalone database or as a cache to a backend Oracle database.

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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	72.95
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Score	1029.49
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	1.26
Rank	#164	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

cloud.google.com/spanner

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

www.mysql.com

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

dev.mysql.com/doc

docs.oracle.com/en/database/other-databases/timesten/index.html

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Google

Microsoft

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Oracle

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

2008

2017

2010

1995

1998

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

V12

9.0.0, July 2024

Release 22.1

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

commercial

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++

C and C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

IBM AIX Power PC 64-bit
Linux arm64
Linux x86-64
Solaris SPARC 64
Solaris SPARC/x86
Solaris x86-64

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.

yes

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

with proprietary extensions

yes

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
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)
Pro*C/C++ programming interfaces
SQL and PL/SQL via JDBC

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

C
C++
Java
Node.js
PL/SQL
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Transact SQL

yes

proprietary syntax

PL/SQL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

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 with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes, with always 3 replicas available

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

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

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

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

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

Apache 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...
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