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DBMS > Cassandra vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx vs. TerminusDB

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx vs. TerminusDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonTerminusDB infoformer name was DataChemist  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessRDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesScalable Graph Database platform making enterprise data available by exploiting inferred entities and relationships
Primary database modelWide column storeRDF storeSearch engineGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
RDF store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score101.89
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score0.69
Rank#230  Overall
#9  RDF stores
Score5.98
Rank#56  Overall
#5  Search engines
Score0.17
Rank#325  Overall
#29  Graph DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgrdf4j.orgsphinxsearch.comterminusdb.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestrdf4j.org/­documentationsphinxsearch.com/­docsterminusdb.github.io/­terminusdb/­#
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookSince 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.Sphinx Technologies Inc.DataChemist Ltd.
Initial release2008200420012018
Current release4.1.3, July 20233.5.1, February 202311.0.0, January 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2Open Source infoEclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availableOpen Source infoGPL V3
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.
Implementation languageJavaJavaC++Prolog, Rust
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
Data schemeschema-freeyes infoRDF Schemasyesyes
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.nono
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)noSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)SQL-like query language (WOQL)
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
Java API
RIO infoRDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL infoSesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL
Proprietary protocolOWL
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
Java
PHP
Python
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
JavaScript
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyesnoyes
Triggersyesyesnoyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"noneSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedGraph Partitioning
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possiblenonenoneJournaling Streams
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
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACID infoIsolation support depends on the API usednoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infoin-memory storage is supported as wellyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes infoin-memory journaling
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.no
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectnonoRole-based access control
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraRDF4J infoformerly known as SesameSphinxTerminusDB 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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More resources
CassandraRDF4J infoformerly known as SesameSphinxTerminusDB infoformer name was DataChemist
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