DBMS > Cassandra vs. Graph Engine vs. HEAVY.AI vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL
System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Graph Engine vs. HEAVY.AI vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL
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| Name | Cassandra Xexclude from comparison | Graph Engine  former name: Trinity Xexclude from comparison | HEAVY.AI Formerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022 Xexclude from comparison | Neo4j Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB Optimized for write access | A distributed in-memory data processing engine, underpinned by a strongly-typed RAM store and a general distributed computation engine | A high performance, column-oriented RDBMS, specifically developed to harness the massive parallelism of modern CPU and GPU hardware | 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 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary database model | Wide column store | Graph DBMS Key-value store | Relational DBMS | Graph DBMS | Relational DBMS with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Vector DBMS starting with release V5 | Spatial DBMS | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | cassandra.apache.org | www.graphengine.io | github.com/heavyai/heavydb www.heavy.ai | neo4j.com | www.postgresql.org | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest | www.graphengine.io/docs/manual | docs.heavy.ai | neo4j.com/docs | www.postgresql.org/docs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Apache Software Foundation Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook | Microsoft | HEAVY.AI, Inc. | Neo4j, Inc. | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 2008 | 2010 | 2016 | 2007 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 4.1.3, July 2023 | 5.10, January 2022 | 5.20, May 2024 | 16.3, May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | Open Source Apache version 2 | Open Source MIT License | Open Source Apache Version 2; enterprise edition available | Open Source GPL version3, commercial licenses available | Open Source BSD | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud-based only Only available as a cloud service | no | no | 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 | .NET and C | C++ and CUDA | Java, Scala | C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server operating systems | BSD Linux OS X Windows | .NET | Linux | 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 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | schema-free | yes | yes | schema-free and schema-optional | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | yes | 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 | no | yes specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary indexes | restricted only equality queries, not always the best performing solution | no | yes pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene | yes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SQL Support of SQL | SQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL) | no | yes | no | yes standard with numerous extensions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | Proprietary protocol CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language) Thrift | RESTful HTTP API | JDBC ODBC Thrift Vega | 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 | C# C++ F# Visual Basic | All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC/Thrift 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 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | no | yes | no | 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 | no | no | yes via event handler | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Partitioning methods Methods for storing different data on different nodes | Sharding no "single point of failure" | horizontal partitioning | Sharding Round robin | yes using Neo4j Fabric | partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | yes | 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 | Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode | Immediate Consistency | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | no | no | no | 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 | no | no | ACID | ACID | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes | optional: either by committing a write-ahead log (WAL) to the local persistent storage or by dumping the memory to a persistent storage | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-memory capabilities Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only. | no | yes | yes | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User concepts Access control | Access rights for users can be defined per object | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos) | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More information provided by the system vendor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cassandra | Graph Engine former name: Trinity | HEAVY.AI Formerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022 | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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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| Cassandra | Graph Engine former name: Trinity | HEAVY.AI Formerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022 | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 Here's What to Know About Apache Cassandra 5.0 Cassandra is the “best f*cking database for gen AI,” says DataStax CEO 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 Microsoft Build 2024: Cosmos DB for NoSQL gets vector search provided by Google News Trinity Open source Microsoft Graph Engine takes on Neo4j IBM releases Graph, a service that can outperform SQL databases The graph analytics landscape 2019 - DataScienceCentral.com Aerospike Is Now a Graph Database, Too provided by Google News Big Data Analytics: A Game Changer for Infrastructure HEAVY.AI Launches HEAVY 7.0, Introducing Real-Time Machine Learning Capabilities HEAVY.AI Partners with Bain, Maxar, and Nvidia to Provide Digital Twins for Telecom Networks Making the most of geospatial intelligence The insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List for Q4 2023 provided by Google News Neo4j graph analytics integrated with Snowflake's AI cloud – Blocks and Files Neo4j & Snowflake Collaborate for AI Insights & Analytics Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance GenAI and Data Solutions USA - English - India - English Neo4j integrates dozens of graph analytics functions with data in Snowflake Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure provided by Google News PostgreSQL is Now Faster than Pinecone, 75% Cheaper, with New Open Source Extensions Timescale unveils high-performance AI vector database extensions for PostgreSQL PostgreSQL Tutorial: Definition, Commands, & Features How To Schedule PostgreSQL Backups With GitHub Actions Raise the bar on AI-powered app development with Azure Database for PostgreSQL provided by Google News | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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