Cassandra (2.0)
Written in: Java
Main point: Store huge datasets in "almost" SQL
License: Apache
Protocol: CQL3 & Thrift
CQL3 is very similar SQL, but with some limitations that come from the scalability (most notably: no JOINs, no aggregate functions.)
CQL3 is now the official interface. Don't look at Thrift, unless you're working on a legacy app. This way, you can live without understanding ColumnFamilies, SuperColumns, etc.
Querying by key, or key range (secondary indices are also available)
Tunable trade-offs for distribution and replication (N, R, W)
Data can have expiration (set on INSERT).
Writes can be much faster than reads (when reads are disk-bound)
Map/reduce possible with Apache Hadoop
All nodes are similar, as opposed to Hadoop/HBase
Very good and reliable cross-datacenter replication
Distributed counter datatype.
You can write triggers in Java.
Best used: When you need to store data so huge that it doesn't fit on server, but still want a friendly familiar interface to it.
For example: Web analytics, to count hits by hour, by browser, by IP, etc. Transaction logging. Data collection from huge sensor arrays.
CouchDB (V1.2)
Written in: Erlang
Main point: DB consistency, ease of use
License: Apache
Protocol: HTTP/REST
Bi-directional (!) replication,
continuous or ad-hoc,
with conflict detection,
thus, master-master replication. (!)
MVCC - write operations do not block reads
Previous versions of documents are available
Crash-only (reliable) design
Needs compacting from time to time
Views: embedded map/reduce
Formatting views: lists & shows
Server-side document validation possible
Authentication possible
Real-time updates via '_changes' (!)
Attachment handling
thus, CouchApps (standalone js apps)
Best used: For accumulating, occasionally changing data, on which pre-defined queries are to be run. Places where versioning is important.
For example: CRM, CMS systems. Master-master replication is an especially interesting feature, allowing easy multi-site deployments.
Redis (V3.0RC)
Written in: C
Main point: Blazing fast
License: BSD
Protocol: Telnet-like, binary safe
Disk-backed in-memory database,
Dataset size limited to computer RAM (but can span multiple machines' RAM with clustering)
Master-slave replication, automatic failover
Simple values or data structures by keys
but complex operations like ZREVRANGEBYSCORE.
INCR & co (good for rate limiting or statistics)
Bit operations (for example to implement bloom filters)
Has sets (also union/diff/inter)
Has lists (also a queue; blocking pop)
Has hashes (objects of multiple fields)
Sorted sets (high score table, good for range queries)
Lua scripting capabilities (!)
Has transactions (!)
Values can be set to expire (as in a cache)
Pub/Sub lets one implement messaging
Best used: For rapidly changing data with a foreseeable database size (should fit mostly in memory).
For example: To store real-time stock prices. Real-time analytics. Leaderboards. Real-time communication. And wherever you used memcached before.
Riak (V1.2)
Written in: Erlang & C, some JavaScript
Main point: Fault tolerance
License: Apache
Protocol: HTTP/REST or custom binary Stores blobs
Tunable trade-offs for distribution and replication
Pre- and post-commit hooks in JavaScript or Erlang, for validation and security.
Map/reduce in JavaScript or Erlang
Links & link walking: use it as a graph database
Secondary indices: but only one at once
Large object support (Luwak)
Comes in "open source" and "enterprise" editions
Full-text search, indexing, querying with Riak Search
In the process of migrating the storing backend from "Bitcask" to Google's "LevelDB"
Masterless multi-site replication and SNMP monitoring are commercially licensed
Best used: If you want something Dynamo-like data storage, but no way you're gonna deal with the bloat and complexity. If you need very good single-site scalability, availability and fault-tolerance, but you're ready to pay for multi-site replication.
For example: Point-of-sales data collection. Factory control systems. Places where even seconds of downtime hurt. Could be used as a well-update-able web server.
HBase (V0.92.0)
Written in: Java
Main point: Billions of rows X millions of columns
License: Apache
Protocol: HTTP/REST (also Thrift)
Modeled after Google's BigTable
Uses Hadoop's HDFS as storage
Map/reduce with Hadoop
Query predicate push down via server side scan and get filters
Optimizations for real time queries
A high performance Thrift gateway
HTTP supports XML, Protobuf, and binary
Jruby-based (JIRB) shell
Rolling restart for configuration changes and minor upgrades
Random access performance is like MySQL
A cluster consists of several different types of nodes
Best used: Hadoop is probably still the best way to run Map/Reduce jobs on huge datasets. Best if you use the Hadoop/HDFS stack already.
For example: Search engines. Analysing log data. Any place where scanning huge, two-dimensional join-less tables are a requirement.
MongoDB (2.6.7)
Written in: C++
Main point: Retains some friendly properties of SQL. (Query, index)
License: AGPL (Drivers: Apache)
Protocol: Custom, binary (BSON)
Master/slave replication (auto failover with replica sets)
Sharding built-in
Queries are javascript expressions
Run arbitrary javascript functions server-side
Better update-in-place than CouchDB
Uses memory mapped files for data storage
Performance over features
Journaling (with --journal) is best turned on
On 32bit systems, limited to ~2.5Gb
Text search integrated
GridFS to store big data + metadata (not actually an FS)
Has geospatial indexing
Data center aware
Best used: If you need dynamic queries. If you prefer to define indexes, not map/reduce functions. If you need good performance on a big DB. If you wanted CouchDB, but your data changes too much, filling up disks.
For example: For most things that you would do with MySQL or PostgreSQL, but having predefined columns really holds you back.
