DBMS > Kdb vs. Lovefield vs. RocksDB vs. ScyllaDB vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Kdb vs. Lovefield vs. RocksDB vs. ScyllaDB vs. Sphinx

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

High performance Time Series DBMS

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Embeddable persistent key-value store optimized for fast storage (flash and RAM)

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

Primary database model

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

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

Score	7.71
Rank	#49	Overall
	#2	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	0.33
Rank	#286	Overall
	#131	Relational DBMS

Score	3.41
Rank	#86	Overall
	#11	Key-value stores

Score	4.08
Rank	#76	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	5.95
Rank	#55	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Website

kx.com

google.github.io/lovefield

rocksdb.org

www.scylladb.com

sphinxsearch.com

Technical documentation

code.kx.com

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

github.com/facebook/rocksdb/wiki

docs.scylladb.com

sphinxsearch.com/docs

Developer

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Google

Facebook, Inc.

ScyllaDB

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

Initial release

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

2014

2013

2015

2001

Current release

3.6, May 2018

2.1.12, February 2017

9.2.1, May 2024

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

3.5.1, February 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free 32-bit version

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence available

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.

Scylla Cloud: Create real-time applications that run at global scale with Scylla Cloud, the industry’s most powerful NoSQL DBaaS

Implementation language

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

Linux

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

cluster global secondary indices

yes

full-text index on all search fields

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language (q)

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

C++ API
Java API

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

Proprietary protocol

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

JavaScript

C
C++
Go
Java
Perl
Python
Ruby

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

yes, Lua

Triggers

yes

with views

Using read-only observers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning

none

horizontal partitioning

Sharding

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

none

yes

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

yes

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

using MemoryDB

yes

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

rights management via user accounts

Access rights for users can be defined per object

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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