DBMS > Cassandra vs. HBase vs. Hypertable vs. InfinityDB vs. Informix

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. HBase vs. Hypertable vs. InfinityDB vs. Informix

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Hypertable has stopped its further development with March 2016 and is removed from the DB-Engines ranking.

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

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

An open source BigTable implementation based on distributed file systems such as Hadoop

A Java embedded Key-Value Store which extends the Java Map interface

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

Primary database model

Wide column store

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

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

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	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	30.50
Rank	#26	Overall
	#2	Wide column stores

Score	0.00
Rank	#378	Overall
	#57	Key-value stores

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

hbase.apache.org

boilerbay.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

hbase.apache.org/book.html

boilerbay.com/infinitydb/manual

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

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Powerset

Hypertable Inc.

Boiler Bay Inc.

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.

Initial release

2008

2009

2002

1984

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

2.3.4, January 2021

0.9.8.11, March 2016

4.0

14.10.FC5, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

GNU version 3. Commercial license available

commercial

free developer edition available

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

C++

Java

C, C++ and Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Unix
Windows

using Cygwin

Linux
OS X
Windows

an inofficial Windows port is available

All OS with a Java VM

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

schema-free, schema definition possible

schema-free

yes

nested virtual Java Maps, multi-value, logical â€˜tuple spaceâ€™ runtime Schema upgrade

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

options to bring your own types, AVRO

yes

all Java primitives, Date, CLOB, BLOB, huge sparse arrays

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

restricted

only exact value or prefix value scans

manual creation possible, using inversions based on multi-value capability

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

Java API
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift

C++ API
Thrift

Access via java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentNavigableMap Interface
Proprietary API to InfinityDB ItemSpace (boilerbay.com/docs/ItemSpaceDataStructures.htm)

JDBC
JSON API

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

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
C++
Groovy
Java
PHP
Python
Scala

C++
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

Java

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Coprocessors in Java

yes

Triggers

yes

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
Source-replica replication

selectable replication factor on file system level

none

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 or Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

READ-COMMITTED or SERIALIZED

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

manual creation possible, using inversions based on multi-value capability

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

Single row ACID (across millions of columns)

ACID

Optimistic locking for transactions; no isolation for bulk loads

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

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

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

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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