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DBMS > Cassandra vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. QuestDB vs. SAP HANA vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. QuestDB vs. SAP HANA vs. Snowflake

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonQuestDB  Xexclude from comparisonSAP HANA  Xexclude from comparisonSnowflake  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSA high performance open source SQL database for time series dataIn-memory, column based data store. Available as appliance or cloud serviceCloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data
Primary database modelWide column storeRelational DBMSTime Series DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Relational DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith SAP Hana, Enterprise Edition
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
Score2.52
Rank#109  Overall
#9  Time Series DBMS
Score44.69
Rank#22  Overall
#16  Relational DBMS
Score121.33
Rank#9  Overall
#6  Relational DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgwww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverquestdb.iowww.sap.com/­products/­hana.htmlwww.snowflake.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverquestdb.io/­docshelp.sap.com/­hanadocs.snowflake.net/­manuals/­index.html
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookMicrosoftQuestDB Technology IncSAPSnowflake Computing Inc.
Initial release20081989201420102014
Current release4.1.3, July 2023SQL Server 2022, November 20222.0 SPS07 (April 4, 2023), April 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2commercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoApache 2.0commercialcommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono infoalso available as a cloud based serviceyes
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++Java (Zero-GC), C++, Rust
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux
Windows
Linux
macOS
Windows
Appliance or cloud-servicehosted
Data schemeschema-freeyesyes infoschema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocolyesyes infosupport of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyesyes
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.noyesnonoyes
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesnoyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yesSQL with time-series extensionsyesyes
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)
HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol
JDBC
ODBC
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC
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 infoPostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust infoover HTTP
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) JavanoSQLScript, Ruser defined functions
Triggersyesyesnoyesno infosimilar concept for controling cloud resources
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 federationhorizontal partitioning (by timestamps)yesyes
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 EditionSource-replica replication with eventual consistencyyesyes
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesnoyesyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDACID for single-table writesACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesyes infothrough memory mapped filesyesno
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardyesUsers with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraMicrosoft SQL ServerQuestDBSAP HANASnowflake
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
» more
Relational model with native time series support Column-based storage and time partitioned...
» more
Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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High ingestion throughput: peak of 4M rows/sec (TSBS Benchmark) Code optimizations...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Financial tick data Industrial IoT Application Metrics Monitoring
» more
Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
» more
Banks & Hedge funds, Yahoo, OKX, Airbus, Aquis Exchange, Net App, Cloudera, Airtel,...
» more
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
Open source Apache 2.0 QuestDB Enterprise QuestDB Cloud
» more
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