DBMS > Cassandra vs. HBase vs. ScyllaDB vs. Spark SQL vs. Trafodion

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. HBase vs. ScyllaDB vs. Spark SQL vs. Trafodion

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Apache Trafodion has been retired in 2021. Therefore it is excluded 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

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Spark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processing

Transactional SQL-on-Hadoop DBMS

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Key-value store

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	4.75
Rank	#68	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	18.96
Rank	#33	Overall
	#20	Relational DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

hbase.apache.org/book.html

docs.scylladb.com

spark.apache.org/docs/latest/sql-programming-guide.html

trafodion.apache.org/documentation.html

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Powerset

ScyllaDB

Apache Software Foundation

Apache Software Foundation, originally developed by HP

Initial release

2008

2015

2014

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

2.3.4, January 2021

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

3.5.0 ( 2.13), September 2023

2.3.0, February 2019

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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.

Scylla Cloud: Create real-time applications that run at global scale with Scylla Cloud, the industry’s most powerful NoSQL DBaaS

Implementation language

Java

C++

Scala

C++, Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Unix
Windows

using Cygwin

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

schema-free, schema definition possible

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

options to bring your own types, AVRO

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

cluster global secondary indices

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

Java API
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

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

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

Java
Python
R
Scala

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC/ADO.Net

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Coprocessors in Java

yes, Lua

Java Stored Procedures

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

yes, utilizing Spark Core

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

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

yes, via HBase

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

via user defined functions and HBase

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

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

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)

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

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

in-memory tables

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

Access rights for users can be defined per object

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...
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ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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