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DBMS > Cassandra vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Milvus vs. NebulaGraph

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Milvus vs. NebulaGraph

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonMilvus  Xexclude from comparisonNebulaGraph  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSA DBMS designed for efficient storage of vector data and vector similarity searchesA distributed, linear scalable, high perfomant Graph DBMS
Primary database modelWide column storeRelational DBMSVector DBMSGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score101.89
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score824.29
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score2.31
Rank#113  Overall
#3  Vector DBMS
Score2.14
Rank#120  Overall
#10  Graph DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgwww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-servermilvus.iogithub.com/­vesoft-inc/­nebula
www.nebula-graph.io
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-servermilvus.io/­docs/­overview.mddocs.nebula-graph.io
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookMicrosoftVesoft Inc.
Initial release2008198920192019
Current release4.1.3, July 2023SQL Server 2022, November 20222.3.4, January 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2commercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoApache Version 2.0Open Source infoApache Version 2.0 + Common Clause 1.0
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.SQLServer Flex @ STACKIT offers a managed version of SQL Server with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.Zilliz Cloud – Cloud-native service for Milvus
Implementation languageJavaC++C++, GoC++
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux
Windows
Linux
macOS info10.14 or later
Windows infowith WSL 2 enabled
Linux
Data schemeschema-freeyesStrong typed schema
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesVector, Numeric and Stringyes
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.noyesnono
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesnoyes infoNebula Graph internally uses the Key-Value store RocksDB for persistency. The vertices, edges, and their properties are stored as Key while their values are stored as Value. The primary indexes are per Key and secondary indexes are per Value.
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yesnoSQL-like query language
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
RESTful HTTP APIBrowser interface
console (shell)
Cypher Query Language
GO Object Graph Mapper
Java Object Graph Mapper
NGBatis infoORM framework for NebulaGraph and Spring-Boot
Proprietary native API
Python Object Graph Mapper
Query language nGQL
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C++
Go
Java
PHP
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javanouser defined functions
Triggersyesyesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationShardingSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleyes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionCausal Clustering using Raft protocol
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 ConsistencyBounded Staleness
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Session Consistency
Tunable Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesnoyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infousing RocksDB
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesyesyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardRole based access control and fine grained access rightsRole-based access control
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraMicrosoft SQL ServerMilvusNebulaGraph
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
» more
Milvus is an open-source and cloud-native vector database built for production-ready...
» more
NebulaGraph is a truly distributed, linearly scalable, lightning-fast graph database,...
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Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Highly available, versatile, and robust with millisecond latency. Supports batch...
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NebulaGraph boasts the world's only graph database solution that is able to host...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more
RAG: retrieval augmented generation Video media : video understanding, video deduplication....
» more
Social networking Fraud detection Knowledge graph Data warehouse management Anti...
» more
Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more
Milvus is trusted by thousands of enterprises, including PayPal, eBay, IKEA, LINE,...
» more
Companies from a variety of industries have implemented NebulaGraph Database in production,...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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As of January 2024, 25k+ GitHub stars 10M+ downloads and installations​ ​ 3k+ enterprise...
» more
At our very early stage, NebulaGraph has already received over 10,000 stars on GitHub...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
» more
Milvus was released under the open-source Apache License 2.0 in October 2019. Fully-managed...
» more
NebulaGraph is open source and free to use under Apache 2.0 license.
» more
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