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DBMS > Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak KV vs. TerminusDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak KV vs. TerminusDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonRiak KV  Xexclude from comparisonTerminusDB infoformer name was DataChemist  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLDistributed, fault tolerant key-value storeScalable Graph Database platform making enterprise data available by exploiting inferred entities and relationships
Primary database modelWide column storeRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Key-value store infowith links between data sets and object tags for the creation of secondary indexesGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
Document store
RDF store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score98.83
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score636.25
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score4.01
Rank#79  Overall
#9  Key-value stores
Score0.23
Rank#316  Overall
#27  Graph DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgwww.postgresql.orgterminusdb.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestwww.postgresql.org/­docswww.tiot.jp/­riak-docs/­riak/­kv/­latestterminusdb.github.io/­terminusdb/­#
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerOpenSource, formerly Basho TechnologiesDataChemist Ltd.
Initial release20081989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL20092018
Current release4.1.3, July 202316.3, May 20243.2.0, December 202211.0.0, January 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2Open Source infoBSDOpen Source infoApache version 2, commercial enterprise editionOpen Source infoGPL V3
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJavaCErlangProlog, Rust
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
Linux
Data schemeschema-freeyesschema-freeyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesnoyes
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.noyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.nono
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesrestricted
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yes infostandard with numerous extensionsnoSQL-like query language (WOQL)
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface
OWL
RESTful HTTP API
WOQL (Web Object Query Language)
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
C infounofficial client library
C#
C++ infounofficial client library
Clojure infounofficial client library
Dart infounofficial client library
Erlang
Go infounofficial client library
Groovy infounofficial client library
Haskell infounofficial client library
Java
JavaScript infounofficial client library
Lisp infounofficial client library
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala infounofficial client library
Smalltalk infounofficial client library
JavaScript
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.Erlangyes
Triggersyesyesyes infopre-commit hooks and post-commit hooksyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashSharding infono "single point of failure"Graph Partitioning
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsselectable replication factorJournaling Streams
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnoyesno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Immediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesno infolinks between data sets can be storedyes
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 infoin-memory journaling
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardyes, using Riak SecurityRole-based access control
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraPostgreSQLRiak KVTerminusDB infoformer name was DataChemist
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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