DBMS > Cassandra vs. Interbase vs. Memcached vs. Microsoft Azure Table Storage vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Interbase vs. Memcached vs. Microsoft Azure Table Storage vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Light-weight proven RDBMS

originally from Borland

In-memory key-value store, originally intended for caching

A Wide Column Store for rapid development using massive semi-structured datasets

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	4.61
Rank	#72	Overall
	#39	Relational DBMS

Score	19.42
Rank	#32	Overall
	#4	Key-value stores

Score	4.48
Rank	#75	Overall
	#6	Wide column stores

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

www.memcached.org

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/storage/tables

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Embarcadero

Danga Interactive

originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournal

Microsoft

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2008

1984

2003

2012

2005

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

InterBase 2020, December 2019

1.6.25, March 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

BSD license

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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.

Implementation language

Java

C++

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Android
iOS
Linux
OS X
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

hosted

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

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

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.

export as XML data possible

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

Proprietary protocol

RESTful HTTP API

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++
Delphi
Java
Object Pascal
PHP
Ruby

.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Interbase procedure and trigger language

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

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

Interbase Change Views

none

Repcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallity

yes

implicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.

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

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

optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Multiversion concurreny control

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

using SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocol

Access rights based on private key authentication or shared access signatures

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...
» more

Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
» more

Competitive advantages

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

Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
» more

Typical application scenarios

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

Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
» more

Key customers

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

Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
» 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

Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
» more

News

Empowering On-Premises Deployments with Generative AI: Introducing Vector Search for a Self-Managed Modern Architecture
15 May 2024

Tips and Tricks for the DataStax Astra CLI
7 May 2024

How to Build a Crystal Image Search App with Vector Search
25 April 2024

Knowledge Graphs for RAG without a GraphDB
18 April 2024

How Winweb Built its AI Assistant with DataStax Astra DB and LangChain
17 April 2024

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.