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DBMS > Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL vs. Sphinx vs. Tarantool

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. PostgreSQL vs. Sphinx vs. Tarantool

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonTarantool  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 SQLOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesIn-memory computing platform with a flexible data schema for efficiently building high-performance applications
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.Search engineDocument store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
Spatial DBMS infowith Tarantool/GIS extension
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
Score5.95
Rank#55  Overall
#5  Search engines
Score1.67
Rank#143  Overall
#25  Document stores
#25  Key-value stores
#65  Relational DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgwww.postgresql.orgsphinxsearch.comwww.tarantool.io
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestwww.postgresql.org/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docswww.tarantool.io/­en/­doc
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerSphinx Technologies Inc.VK
Initial release20081989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL20012008
Current release4.1.3, July 202316.3, May 20243.5.1, February 20232.10.0, May 2022
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2Open Source infoBSDOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availableOpen Source infoBSD-2, source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Tarantool Enterprise
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJavaCC++C and C++
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
BSD
Linux
macOS
Data schemeschema-freeyesyesFlexible data schema: relational definition for tables with ability to store json-like documents in columns
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesnostring, double, decimal, uuid, integer, blob, boolean, datetime
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.no
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesyes infofull-text index on all search fieldsyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)yes infostandard with numerous extensionsSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)Full-featured ANSI SQL support
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
Proprietary protocolOpen binary protocol
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
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
C
C#
C++
Erlang
Go
Java
JavaScript
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Rust
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.noLua, C and SQL stored procedures
Triggersyesyesnoyes, before/after data modification events, on replication events, client session events
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 infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedSharding, partitioned with virtual buckets by user defined affinity key. Live resharding for scale up and scale down without maintenance downtime.
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 extensionsnoneAsynchronous replication with multi-master option
Configurable replication topology (full-mesh, chain, star)
Synchronous quorum replication (with Raft)
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Immediate ConsistencyCasual consistency across sharding partitions
Eventual consistency within replicaset partition infowhen using asyncronous replication
Immediate Consistency within single instance
Sequential consistency including linearizable read within replicaset partition infowhen using Raft
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesnoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDnoACID, with serializable isolation and linearizable read (within partition); Configurable MVCC (within partition); No cross-shard distributed transactions
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes, cooperative multitasking
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes, write ahead logging
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nonoyes, full featured in-memory storage engine with persistence
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardnoAccess Control Lists
Mutual TLS authentication for Tarantol Enterprise
Password based authentication
Role-based access control (RBAC) and LDAP for Tarantol Enterprise
Users and Roles
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraPostgreSQLSphinxTarantool
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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