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Azure Cosmos DB VS Cayley

Compare Azure Cosmos DB VS Cayley and see what are their differences

Azure Cosmos DB logo Azure Cosmos DB

NoSQL JSON database for rapid, iterative app development.

Cayley logo Cayley

Open-source graph database.
  • Azure Cosmos DB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-16
  • Cayley Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-02-03

Azure Cosmos DB features and specs

  • Global Distribution
    Azure Cosmos DB allows for the distribution of data across multiple global regions, enhancing availability and delivering low-latency access to data for users around the world.
  • Multi-Model Support
    It supports multiple data models including document, graph, key-value, and column-family APIs, making it versatile for a variety of applications and use cases.
  • Automatic Scaling
    The database automatically scales up and down to meet the demands of application traffic, helping to manage workloads efficiently without manual intervention.
  • High Throughput and Low Latency
    Cosmos DB offers high performance with single-digit millisecond read and write latencies, ensuring fast access to data for applications.
  • Comprehensive SLAs
    Azure Cosmos DB provides industry-leading SLAs covering availability, throughput, consistency, and latency, offering strong guarantees for customers.
  • Integrated Security
    It includes robust security features such as SSL/TLS encryption, role-based access control, and integration with Azure Active Directory for secure data management.

Possible disadvantages of Azure Cosmos DB

  • Cost
    Azure Cosmos DB can be expensive, especially for high-throughput workloads and global distribution scenarios. Its pricing model based on provisioned throughput (RU/s) can add up quickly.
  • Complexity
    Managing and optimizing Cosmos DB can be complex, requiring a deep understanding of its configuration settings, partitioning strategies, and indexing to achieve optimal performance.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    As a proprietary service, using Cosmos DB tightly couples your application to Azure. This can make it difficult to migrate to other database solutions or cloud providers in the future.
  • Consistency Models
    Azure Cosmos DB supports multiple consistency levels which can introduce complexity in designing applications. Developers need to understand and choose the appropriate consistency level for their specific use case.
  • Limited Native Analytics
    Cosmos DB does not have built-in advanced analytics capabilities. Integrating with other services like Azure Synapse or Databricks may be necessary for sophisticated data analytics and reporting.

Cayley features and specs

  • Open Source
    Cayley is open source, which means it is free to use and the source code is available for modification. This promotes transparency and community-driven development.
  • Graph Database
    Cayley is designed as a graph database and is optimized for storing and querying graph-structured data, which can be more efficient for certain types of complex queries.
  • Supports Multiple Storage Backends
    Cayley can be configured to use various storage backends like levelDB, BoltDB, and MongoDB, providing flexibility in terms of storage solutions.
  • Rich Query Language
    Cayley offers a powerful query language inspired by Google's GQL and supports multiple query methods, making it versatile for different query needs.

Possible disadvantages of Cayley

  • Limited Community Support
    As Cayley is an open-source project, it may have limited community support and a smaller ecosystem compared to more established databases like Neo4j.
  • Performance Concerns
    Depending on the size of the data set and the complexity of queries, performance might not match more specialized solutions without careful tuning.
  • Documentation
    The documentation for Cayley may not be as comprehensive or user-friendly as that of more mature projects, which could create challenges for new users.
  • Feature Set
    While Cayley is flexible, it might lack some advanced features present in other graph databases, which could limit its utility for complex use cases.

Analysis of Azure Cosmos DB

Overall verdict

  • Azure Cosmos DB is generally regarded as a robust and versatile database solution, particularly suited for applications that require flexibility, scale, and low-latency global access. It is a good option for developers looking to leverage Azure's cloud ecosystem.

Why this product is good

  • Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service that offers turnkey global distribution, horizontal scaling, and a comprehensive SLA covering throughput, latency, availability, and consistency. It is designed to provide high availability and seamless integration with Azure services, making it a good fit for applications requiring low-latency and the ability to scale across multiple regions.

Recommended for

  • Organizations needing globally distributed applications
  • Developers working within the Azure ecosystem
  • Applications requiring multi-model database capabilities
  • Scenarios demanding high availability and low latency
  • Projects where seamless scalability is a priority

Azure Cosmos DB videos

Azure Cosmos DB: Comprehensive Overview

More videos:

  • Review - Azure Friday | Azure Cosmos DB with Scott Hanselman
  • Tutorial - Azure Cosmos DB Tutorial | Globally distributed NoSQL database

Cayley videos

Foundry Cigar- Cayley Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Azure Cosmos DB and Cayley)
Databases
79 79%
21% 21
NoSQL Databases
75 75%
25% 25
Graph Databases
67 67%
33% 33
Relational Databases
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Azure Cosmos DB seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 9 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Azure Cosmos DB mentions (9)

  • Blazor server app, deployment options
    If you are writing the code maybe consider learning Cosmos DB it’s pretty easy to work with and there is a free tier. Also in my experience it’s much faster than a SQL database. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Infrastructure as code (IaC) for Java-based apps on Azure
    Sometimes you don’t need an entire Java-based microservice. You can build serverless APIs with the help of Azure Functions. For example, Azure functions have a bunch of built-in connectors like Azure Event Hubs to process event-driven Java code and send the data to Azure Cosmos DB in real-time. FedEx and UBS projects are great examples of real-time, event-driven Java. I also recommend you to go through 👉 Code,... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Deploying a Mostly Serverless Website on GCP
    When debating the database solution for our application we were really seeking for a scalable serverless database that wouldn’t bill us for idle time. Options like AWS Athena, AWS Aurora Serverless, and Azure Cosmos DB immediately came to mind. We believed that GCP would have a comparable service, yet we could not find one. Even after consulting the GCP cloud service comparison documentation we were still unable... - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Which DB to use for API published on Azure?
    If you are looking for one to start with; you can try Cosmos: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cosmos-db/. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Basic Setup for Azure Cosmos DB and Example Node App
    I have had an opportunity to work on a project that uses Azure Cosmos DB with the MongDB API as the backend database. I wanted to spend a little more time on my own understanding how to perform basic setup and a simple set of CRUD operations from a Node application, as well as construct an easy-to-follow procedure for other developers. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
View more

Cayley mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Cayley yet. Tracking of Cayley recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Azure Cosmos DB and Cayley, you can also consider the following products

Redis - Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

ArangoDB - A distributed open-source database with a flexible data model for documents, graphs, and key-values.

neo4j - Meet Neo4j: The graph database platform powering today's mission-critical enterprise applications, including artificial intelligence, fraud detection and recommendations.

MongoDB - MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance NoSQL database.

OrientDB - OrientDB - The World's First Distributed Multi-Model NoSQL Database with a Graph Database Engine.

Apache Cassandra - The Apache Cassandra database is the right choice when you need scalability and high availability without compromising performance.