DBMS > Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Postgres-XL vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Postgres-XL vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Elastic, large scale data warehouse service leveraging the broad eco-system of SQL Server

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

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

Wide column store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	98.83
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	27.71
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	19.93
Rank	#31	Overall
	#19	Relational DBMS

Score	0.53
Rank	#254	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	10.06
Rank	#42	Overall
	#26	Relational DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

azure.microsoft.com/services/synapse-analytics

www.postgres-xl.org

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.microsoft.com/azure/synapse-analytics

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Microsoft

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2008

2014

2016

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

2005

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

10 R1, October 2018

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

Mozilla public 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

hosted

Linux
macOS

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

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

JSON types

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.

yes

XML type, but no XML query functionality

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL-like query language

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

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

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

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#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

C#
Java
PHP

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

Transact SQL

user defined functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

JavaScript

yes

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

horizontal partitioning

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

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

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

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

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

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-table-constraints

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

MVCC

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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.

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

yes

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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