DBMS > Cassandra vs. HarperDB vs. HBase vs. Riak KV

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. HarperDB vs. HBase vs. Riak KV

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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

Ultra-low latency distributed database with an intuitive REST API supporting NoSQL and SQL (including joins). Deployment of functions and databases simultaneously with a consolidated node-level architecture.

Wide-column store based on Apache Hadoop and on concepts of BigTable

Distributed, fault tolerant key-value store

Primary database model

with links between data sets and object tags for the creation of secondary indexes

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	98.83
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	0.60
Rank	#244	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	27.97
Rank	#26	Overall
	#2	Wide column stores

Score	4.01
Rank	#79	Overall
	#9	Key-value stores

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.harperdb.io

hbase.apache.org

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.harperdb.io/docs

hbase.apache.org/book.html

www.tiot.jp/riak-docs/riak/kv/latest

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

HarperDB

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Powerset

OpenSource, formerly Basho Technologies

Initial release

2008

2017

2008

2009

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

3.1, August 2021

2.3.4, January 2021

3.2.0, December 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free community edition available

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2, commercial enterprise edition

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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

Node.js

Java

Erlang

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X

Linux
Unix
Windows

using Cygwin

Linux
OS X

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

schema-free, schema definition possible

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

options to bring your own types, AVRO

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

restricted

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)

SQL-like data manipulation statements

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

Java API
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift

HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C#
C++
ColdFusion
D
Dart
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
MatLab
Objective C
Perl
PHP
PowerShell
Prolog
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift

C
C#
C++
Groovy
Java
PHP
Python
Scala

unofficial client library
C#
C++

unofficial client library
Clojure

unofficial client library
Dart

unofficial client library
Erlang
Go

unofficial client library
Groovy

unofficial client library
Haskell

unofficial client library
Java
JavaScript

unofficial client library
Lisp

unofficial client library
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

unofficial client library
Smalltalk

unofficial client library

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

yes

Coprocessors in Java

Erlang

Triggers

yes

pre-commit hooks and post-commit hooks

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

A table resides as a whole on one (or more) nodes in a cluster

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

selectable replication factor

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

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

links between data sets can be stored

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

Atomic execution of specific operations

Single row ACID (across millions of columns)

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, using LMDB

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 and roles

Access Control Lists (ACL) for RBAC, integration with Apache Ranger for RBAC & ABAC

yes, using Riak Security

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...
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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...
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