DBMS > Cassandra vs. HarperDB vs. Oracle Berkeley DB vs. TimesTen vs. Transbase

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. HarperDB vs. Oracle Berkeley DB vs. TimesTen vs. Transbase

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.

Widely used in-process key-value store

In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle

A resource-optimized, high-performance, universally applicable RDBMS

Primary database model

Wide column store

Document store

Key-value store

supports sorted and unsorted key sets
Native XML DBMS

in the Oracle Berkeley DB XML version

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	0.55
Rank	#248	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	2.21
Rank	#117	Overall
	#20	Key-value stores
	#3	Native XML DBMS

Score	1.31
Rank	#163	Overall
	#74	Relational DBMS

Score	0.11
Rank	#341	Overall
	#150	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.harperdb.io

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

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

www.transaction.de/en/products/transbase.html

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.harperdb.io/docs

docs.oracle.com/cd/E17076_05/html/index.html

docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1

www.transaction.de/en/products/transbase/features.html

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

HarperDB

Oracle

originally developed by Sleepycat, which was acquired by Oracle

Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP

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

Transaction Software GmbH

Initial release

2008

2017

1994

1998

1987

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

3.1, August 2021

18.1.40, May 2020

11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)

Transbase 8.3, 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free community edition available

Open Source

commercial license available

commercial

free development license

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

C, Java, C++ (depending on the Berkeley DB edition)

C and C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X

AIX
Android
FreeBSD
iOS
Linux
OS X
Solaris
VxWorks
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

schema-free

yes

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.

yes

only with the Berkeley DB XML edition

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)

SQL-like data manipulation statements

yes

SQL interfaced based on SQLite is available

yes

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

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

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

.Net

Figaro is a .Net framework assembly that extends Berkeley DB XML into an embeddable database engine for .NET
others

Third-party libraries to manipulate Berkeley DB files are available for many languages
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)

3rd party binding
Perl
Python
Tcl

C
C++
Java
PL/SQL

C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Objective-C
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

PL/SQL

yes

Triggers

yes

only for the SQL API

yes

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

none

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

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica 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

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

Atomic execution of specific operations

ACID

yes

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, using LMDB

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

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

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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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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