We are living in the 20th century the century of technologies. Because of this, we come across a lot of data in our daily life. So it is important for us to have a database that can help in maintaining a huge amount of data. Now we have many popular databases in the market like PostgreSQL, Cassandra, MySQL MongoDB, and many more. But the question is which one can fulfill our needs. Now, this blog is for you if you want to choose your database. Here we are comparing two majorly popular databases which are PostgreSQL AND APACHE CASSANDRA. Both PostgreSQL and CASSANDRA are popular and are used by the tech. giants like Amazon, hp, Phillips, etc. But before we go any further let’s see what are PostgreSQL and Cassandra.
PostgreSQL :

Postgre SQL is one of the most powerful database management systems we have. It is an open-source relational database system that has been used for two decades. It is highly stable and very low effort is required to maintain this DBMS. One of the best features about it is that it can support both JSON (non-relational) and SQL (relational) querying. PostgreSQL has a rich history for support of advanced data types as a result it is one of the popular databases in the industry. It supports a level of performance optimization that is common across its commercial database counterparts, like Oracle and SQL Server.
If you want to know more about Postgre SQL then visit these sites: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/
Cassandra :



Cassandra is a distributed database management system. It is an open-source database with a wide column store, NoSQL database. And because of this, it can handle a large amount of data across many commodity servers. This provides high availability with no single point of failure. Cassandra is a scalable, fault-tolerant, consistent, and column-oriented database. It has features like Flexible data storage, Easy data distribution and Elastic scalability, Transaction support. And because of a feature like this, it is one of the most popular databases.
If you want to know more about Cassandra then visit these sites: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/introduction-to-apache-cassandra/ https://cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest/ https://data-flair.training/blogs/apache-cassandra-tutorial/
Postgre SQL V/S CASSANDRA :
Difference between Postgre SQL and Cassandra :
Feature | Postgre SQL | Cassandra |
---|---|---|
Description | It is an open-source RDBMS. | It is an open-source database with a wide column store, NoSQL database. |
Developer | PostgreSQL Global Development Group | Apache Software Foundation |
Primary database model | RDBMS | Wide-column store |
Secondary database model | Document store | Not applicable |
Query language | CQL (Cassandra Query Language) | SQL(Structured Query Language) |
Written in | PostgreSQL is developed in the C language | Cassandra is developed in Java languages. |
Partitioning methods | Supports partitioning by range, list, and hash | Sharding |
XML format | It supports XML format. | It does not support XML format. |
Secondary indexing. | It supports Secondary indexing. | It supports Secondary indexing but in a restricted way |
Server-side scripting. | It has user-defined functions for Server-side scripts. | It does not support Server-side scripting. |
Foreign Key | It provides the concept of Foreign Key | It does not provide the concept of Foreign Key |
Joins | We can perform joins in PostgreSQL | We cannot perform joins in Cassandra. |
Replication | It supports the “Master-Master” replication method. | It supports the selectable replication factor method. |
Server operating systems | FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OS X, Solaris, Unix, Windows | BSD, Linux, OS X, Windows |
SImilarities between Postgre SQL and Cassandra :
- Both PostgreSQL and Cassandra are Open-Source DBMS.
- We an deploy both PostgreSQL and Cassandra on the cloud as well as on-premises infrastructure.
- Both PostgreSQL and Cassandra receive support from large developer communities.
CONCLUSION :
Although they are databases based on different models they also share some common features. Like both, Postgre SQL and Cassandra support programming languages like java, python, c++. Both of these databases also support Linux operating system. Not only that but both Postgre SQL and Cassandra support for concurrent manipulation of data. Both Postgre SQL and Cassandra have a few features which give them advantages over other databases. Both of them are amazing and it’s all up to users which database they want to use.


