DBMS > Cassandra vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. NuoDB vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. NuoDB vs. TimescaleDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

A robust multi-value DBMS comprising development tools and middleware

NuoDB is a webscale distributed database that supports SQL and ACID transactions

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Multivalue DBMS

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Relational DBMS

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	1.41
Rank	#159	Overall
	#3	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.89
Rank	#198	Overall
	#92	Relational DBMS

Score	4.64
Rank	#71	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.rocketsoftware.com/products/rocket-multivalue-application-development-platform/rocket-jbase

www.3ds.com/nuodb-distributed-sql-database

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

docs.rocketsoftware.com/bundle?labelkey=jbase_5.9

doc.nuodb.com

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

IBM

Rocket Software (formerly Zumasys)

Dassault Systèmes

originally NuoDB, Inc.

Timescale

Initial release

2008

1983

host version

1991

2013

2017

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

12.1, October 2016

5.7

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free version is available

commercial

limited edition free

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.

Implementation language

Java

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
Linux
Windows

hosted

Amazon EC2, Windows Azure, SoftLayer
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

optional

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

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

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)

yes

Embedded SQL for jBASE in BASIC

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
SOAP-based 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.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net
Basic
Jabbascript
Java

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Java, SQL

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

data is dynamically stored/cached on the nodes where it is read/written

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes

Managed transparently by NuoDB

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

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

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

ACID

tunable commit protocol

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC

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

Temporary table

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

Standard SQL roles/ privileges, Administrative Users

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...
» more

Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more

Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more

Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.