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DBMS > Cassandra vs. Informix vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Informix vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonInformix  Xexclude from comparisonRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessA secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things dataRDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelWide column storeRelational DBMS infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDBRDF storeSearch engine
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS infowith Informix TimeSeries Extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score103.86
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score18.85
Rank#35  Overall
#22  Relational DBMS
Score0.71
Rank#231  Overall
#9  RDF stores
Score6.03
Rank#60  Overall
#6  Search engines
Websitecassandra.apache.orgwww.ibm.com/­products/­informixrdf4j.orgsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestinformix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/­support/­knowledgecenter/­SSGU8G/­welcomeIfxServers.html
rdf4j.org/­documentationsphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookIBM, HCL Technologies infoEffective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.Sphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release2008198420042001
Current release4.1.3, July 202314.10.FC5, November 20203.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2commercial infofree developer edition availableOpen Source infoEclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.
Implementation languageJavaC, C++ and JavaJavaC++
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeyesyes infoRDF Schemasyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypesyesno
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.no
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yesnoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
JDBC
JSON API infoMongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Java API
RIO infoRDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL infoSesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Java
PHP
Python
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyesyesno
Triggersyesyesyesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"ShardingnoneSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
nonenone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDACID infoIsolation support depends on the API usedno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoin-memory storage is supported as wellyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectUsers with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controlsnono
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraInformixRDF4J infoformerly known as SesameSphinx
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
» more
Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
» more
Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more
Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
» more
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