DBMS > Apache Cassandra vs. IBM Cloudant vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. PostgreSQL
System Properties Comparison Apache Cassandra vs. IBM Cloudant vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. PostgreSQL
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| Name | Apache Cassandra Xexclude from comparison | IBM Cloudant Xexclude from comparison | MariaDB Xexclude from comparison | Microsoft Azure SQL Database  formerly SQL Azure Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB Optimized for write access | Database as a Service offering based on Apache CouchDB | MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL. | Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server | Widely used open source RDBMS Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary database model | Wide column store | Document store | Relational DBMS | Relational DBMS | Relational DBMS with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Vector DBMS starting with release V5 | Document store Graph DBMS with OQGraph storage engineSpatial DBMS | Document store Graph DBMS Spatial DBMS | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | cassandra.apache.org | www.ibm.com/products/cloudant | mariadb.com Site of MariaDB Corporation mariadb.org Site of MariaDB Foundation | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database | www.postgresql.org | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest | cloud.ibm.com/docs/Cloudant | mariadb.com/kb/en/library | docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql | www.postgresql.org/docs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Apache Software Foundation Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook | IBM, Apache Software Foundation IBM acquired Cloudant in February 2014 | MariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise), MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server) The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL | Microsoft | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 2008 | 2010 | 2009 Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995 | 2010 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 5.0-rc1, July 2024 | 11.5.2, August 2024 | V12 | 16.4, August 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | Open Source Apache version 2 | commercial | Open Source GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available | commercial | Open Source BSD | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud-based only Only available as a cloud service | no | yes | no | yes | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. | STACKIT MariaDB offers MariaDB in a fully managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant. | PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Implementation language | Java | Erlang | C and C++ | C++ | C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server operating systems | BSD Linux OS X Windows | hosted | FreeBSD Linux Solaris Windows ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows | hosted | FreeBSD HP-UX Linux NetBSD OpenBSD OS X Solaris Unix Windows | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | schema-free | schema-free | yes Dynamic columns are supported | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | no | yes | yes | 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. | no | no | yes | yes | yes specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary indexes | restricted only equality queries, not always the best performing solution | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SQL Support of SQL | SQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL) | no | yes with proprietary extensions | yes | yes standard with numerous extensions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | Proprietary protocol CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language) Thrift | RESTful HTTP/JSON API | ADO.NET JDBC ODBC Proprietary native API | ADO.NET JDBC ODBC | ADO.NET JDBC native C library ODBC streaming API for large objects | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supported programming languages | C# C++ Clojure Erlang Go Haskell Java JavaScript Node.jsPerl PHP Python Ruby Scala | C# Java JavaScript Objective-C PHP Ruby | Ada C C# C++ D Eiffel Erlang Go Haskell Java JavaScript (Node.js) Objective-C OCaml Perl PHP Python Ruby Scheme Tcl | .Net C# Java JavaScript (Node.js) PHP Python Ruby | .Net C C++ Delphi Java JDBCJavaScript (Node.js) Perl PHP Python Tcl | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | no | View functions (Map-Reduce) in JavaScript | yes PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3 | Transact SQL | user defined functions realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Triggers | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Partitioning methods Methods for storing different data on different nodes | Sharding no "single point of failure" | Sharding | several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding | partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | Multi-source replication Source-replica replication | yes, with always 3 replicas available | Source-replica replication other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | yes | yes | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consistency concepts Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system | Eventual Consistency Immediate Consistency can be individually decided for each write operation | Eventual Consistency | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | no | no | yes not for MyISAM storage engine | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transaction concepts Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data | no Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations | no atomic operations within a document possible | ACID not for MyISAM storage engine | ACID | ACID | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes Optimistic locking | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes | yes | yes not for in-memory storage engine | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-memory capabilities Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only. | no | no | yes with MEMORY storage engine | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User concepts Access control | Access rights for users can be defined per object | Access rights for users can be defined per database | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More information provided by the system vendor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apache Cassandra | IBM Cloudant | MariaDB | Microsoft Azure SQL Database formerly SQL Azure | PostgreSQL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Specific characteristics | Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well... » more | MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Competitive advantages | No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for... » more | MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases.... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typical application scenarios | Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product... » more | Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Key customers | Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best... » more | Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Market metrics | Apache Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100. » more | MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Licensing and pricing models | Apache license Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available... » more | MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,... » more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| More resources | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apache Cassandra | IBM Cloudant | MariaDB | Microsoft Azure SQL Database formerly SQL Azure | PostgreSQL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DB-Engines blog posts | MariaDB strengthens its position in the open source RDBMS market PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2017 Big gains for Relational Database Management Systems in DB-Engines Ranking | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2020 Cloud-based DBMS's popularity grows at high rates The popularity of cloud-based DBMSs has increased tenfold in four years | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023 Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021 PASS Data Community Summit New Apache Cassandra 5.0 gives open source NoSQL database a scalability and performance boost Apache Cassandra introduces version 5.0 of open-source NoSQL database Migrate Cassandra workloads to Amazon Keyspaces using CQLReplicator Cassandra redesigns indexing, storage management for 5.0 release How Uber ensures Apache Cassandra®’s tolerance for single-zone failure provided by Google News Cloudant Best (and Worst) Practices — Part 1 Intro to Enterprise Cloud Storage: How to Set Up a Cloudant Database IBM to Purchase Cloudant Database as a service (DBaaS) Provider IBM Code Engine and IBM Cloudant: Serverless Data and Infrastructure DataStax acquires Aurelius, the startup behind the Titan graph database provided by Google News K1 Acquires MariaDB, a Leading Database Software Company, and Appoints New CEO MariaDB goes private after acquisition by K1 Investment Management Proposal Seeks To Replace MySQL With MariaDB By Default For Ubuntu 25.04 MariaDB goes private with new CEO as K1 closes acquisition ServiceNow moves its backend off MariaDB to homebrew Postgres provided by Google News Public Preview: New Azure SQL Database skills introduced to Microsoft Copilot in Azure Public Preview: Azure SQL updates for late-May 2024 General availability: Azure SQL updates for late-May 2024 Getting started with delivering generative AI capabilities in SQL Server and Azure SQL Copilot in Azure SQL Database in Private Preview provided by Google News YugabyteDB 2.19 gets new PostgreSQL-compatibility features YugabyteDB Evolves PostgreSQL to a Distributed Architecture for Modern, Cloud-Native Applications Synopsis of several compelling features in PostgreSQL 16 | Amazon Web Services MongoDB takes a swing at PostgreSQL after claiming wins against rival Intel Demonstrates Up To 48% Improvement For AVX-512 Optimized PostgreSQL provided by Google News | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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