DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. Graph Engine vs. Informix vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. Graph Engine vs. Informix vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics 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 distributed in-memory data processing engine, underpinned by a strongly-typed RAM store and a general distributed computation engine

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Elastic, large scale data warehouse service leveraging the broad eco-system of SQL Server

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

Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

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

Score	98.94
Rank	#11	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	0.56
Rank	#241	Overall
	#21	Graph DBMS
	#34	Key-value stores

Score	16.32
Rank	#35	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	18.98
Rank	#31	Overall
	#19	Relational DBMS

Score	1.26
Rank	#164	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.graphengine.io

www.ibm.com/products/informix

azure.microsoft.com/services/synapse-analytics

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

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

www.graphengine.io/docs/manual

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

docs.microsoft.com/azure/synapse-analytics

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

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Microsoft

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Microsoft

Oracle

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

Initial release

2008

2010

1984

2016

1998

Current release

5.0-rc1, July 2024

14.10.FC5, November 2020

Release 22.1

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

MIT License

commercial

free developer edition 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

.NET and C

C, C++ and Java

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

.NET

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

hosted

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

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

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

C#
C++
F#
Visual Basic

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

C#
Java
PHP

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transact SQL

PL/SQL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

horizontal partitioning

Sharding

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

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
Source-replica replication

yes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-table-constraints

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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

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

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

yes

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...
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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...
» 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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