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DBMS > Cassandra vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonMariaDB  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessMySQL 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.Microsofts flagship relational DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelWide column storeRelational DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS infowith OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS
Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score104.59
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score95.03
Rank#13  Overall
#9  Relational DBMS
Score845.81
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score44.36
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgmariadb.com infoSite of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org infoSite of MariaDB Foundation
www.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestmariadb.com/­kb/­en/­librarylearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookMariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server) infoThe lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL
MicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release20082009 infoFork of MySQL, which was first released in 199519892007
Current release4.1.3, July 202311.3.2, February 2024SQL Server 2022, November 20225.18.1, March 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription availablecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses 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.Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageJavaC and C++C++Java, Scala
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows infoColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows
Linux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeyes infoDynamic columns are supportedyesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyes
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.noyesyes
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yes infowith proprietary extensionsyesno
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Eiffel
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoPL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersyesyesyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"several options for horizontal partitioning and Shardingtables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j Fabric
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
yes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
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 ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyes infonot for MyISAM storage engineyesyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACID infonot for MyISAM storage engineACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infonot for in-memory storage engineyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes infowith MEMORY storage engineyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraMariaDBMicrosoft SQL ServerNeo4j
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
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Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
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Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
» more
Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more
Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
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Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
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Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
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GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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