DBMS > Cassandra vs. etcd vs. HarperDB vs. Neo4j vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. etcd vs. HarperDB vs. Neo4j vs. Vertica

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.

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	7.25
Rank	#54	Overall
	#5	Key-value stores

Score	0.55
Rank	#248	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

etcd.io
github.com/etcd-io/etcd

www.harperdb.io

neo4j.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

etcd.io/docs
github.com/etcd-io/etcd/tree/master/Documentation

docs.harperdb.io/docs

neo4j.com/docs

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

HarperDB

Neo4j, Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2008

2017

2007

2005

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

3.4, August 2019

3.1, August 2021

5.19, April 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

commercial

free community edition available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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.

Implementation language

Java

Node.js

Java, Scala

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
Windows

experimental

Linux
OS X

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

schema-free and schema-optional

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

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

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL-like data manipulation statements

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

gRPC
JSON over HTTP

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Tcl

.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

.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

yes, watching key changes

yes

via event handler

yes, called Custom Alerts

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

yes using Neo4j Fabric

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Using Raft consensus algorithm to ensure data replication with strong consistency among multiple replicas.

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Bi-directional Spark integration

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

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

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

ACID

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

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
» more

Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
» more

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.