DBMS > Cassandra vs. NebulaGraph vs. Newts vs. RDF4J vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. NebulaGraph vs. Newts vs. RDF4J vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

A distributed, linear scalable, high perfomant Graph DBMS

Time Series DBMS based on Cassandra

RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

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

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	2.14
Rank	#120	Overall
	#10	Graph DBMS

Score	0.00
Rank	#383	Overall
	#41	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.69
Rank	#230	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Score	1.73
Rank	#143	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

cassandra.apache.org

github.com/vesoft-inc/nebula
www.nebula-graph.io

opennms.github.io/newts

rdf4j.org

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

docs.nebula-graph.io

github.com/OpenNMS/newts/wiki

rdf4j.org/documentation

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Vesoft Inc.

OpenNMS Group

Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2008

2019

2014

2004

2019

Current release

4.1.3, July 2023

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0 + Common Clause 1.0

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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++

Java

Server operating systems

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

Strong typed schema

schema-free

yes

RDF Schemas

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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.

Secondary indexes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

Nebula 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.

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL-like query language

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift

Browser interface
console (shell)
Cypher Query Language
GO Object Graph Mapper
Java Object Graph Mapper
NGBatis

ORM framework for NebulaGraph and Spring-Boot
Proprietary native API
Python Object Graph Mapper
Query language nGQL

HTTP REST
Java API

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C++
Go
Java
PHP
Python

Java

Java
PHP
Python

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

yes

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

based on Cassandra

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

selectable replication factor

based on Cassandra

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

based on Cassandra
Immediate Consistency

based on Cassandra

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

using RocksDB

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

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

Role-based access control

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Apache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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NebulaGraph is a truly distributed, linearly scalable, lightning-fast graph database,...
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Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

No single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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NebulaGraph boasts the world's only graph database solution that is able to host...
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Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Social networking Fraud detection Knowledge graph Data warehouse management Anti...
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As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

Apple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Companies from a variety of industries have implemented NebulaGraph Database in production,...
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All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

Cassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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At our very early stage, NebulaGraph has already received over 10,000 stars on GitHub...
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As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
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Licensing and pricing models

Apache licenseÂ Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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NebulaGraph is open source and free to use under Apache 2.0 license.
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Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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