Google Cloud Datastore is a NoSQL "schemaless" database as a service, supporting diverse data types. The database is managed; Google manages sharding and replication and prices according to storage and activity.
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IBM watsonx.data
Score 8.7 out of 10
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Watsonx.data is presented as an open, hybrid and governed data store that makes it possible for enterprises to scale analytics and AI with a fit-for-purpose data store, built on an open lakehouse architecture, supported by querying, governance and open data formats to access and share data.
If you want a serverless NoSQL database, no matter it is for personal use, or for company use, Google Cloud Datastore should be on top of your list, especially if you are using Google Cloud as your primary cloud platform. It integrates with all services in the Google Cloud platform.
Real-time transaction processing (both reads and writes) is where DataStax Enterprise shines. It's very fast with linear scalability should more resources be needed. Additional nodes are added very easily. DataStax Enterprise on its own (without Solr or Spark enabled) isn't well suited for long complicated reports. The data model doesn't support joining multiple tables together which is common in BI reporting.
Datastax Cassandra provides high availability and good performance for a database. It is built on top of open source Apache Cassandra so you can always somewhat understand the internal functioning and why.
Datastax Cassandra is fairly simple to start using, you can install/setup your cluster and be productive in 1 day.
Datastax Cassandra provides a lot of good detailed documentation, and when starting, the detailed free videos on the Datastax site and documentation are very helpful.
Datastax Enterprise Edition of Cassandra provides more tools, good support, and quick response SLA for enterprise business support.
Integration complexity with Security Tools while watsonx.Data is well-suited for native tools, but integration with third-party security tools requires custom connectors or manual ETL pipelines. which leads to an increase in setup time.
For the amount of use we're getting from Google Cloud Datastore, switching to any other platform would have more cost with little gain. Not having to manage and maintain Google Cloud Datastore for over 4 years has allowed our teams to work on other things. The price is so low that almost any other option for our needs would be far more expensive in time and money.
As an open source technology Cassandra can be readily used with or without any commercial support. DataStax provides value-added services and features, and in the end it is up to individual situations to strike a balance between the desirability of such support/service versus the associated cost.
DataStax has a good community built around it and has amazing scalability options. Though the initial setup is a bit costly, in the long run, it makes up for it. It also has powerful monitoring tools and a clean UI.
We have had a few situations where we caused an outage or something has gone wrong and we are able to get a support person to offer live help within minutes. The escalation process is excellent - the best I've seen - and the support team is incredibly strong. Outside of emergencies, the team is very helpful with general questions and working through data model exercises and the subscription I believe still comes with some hours to help get the data model reviewed.
We selected Google Cloud Datastore as one of our candidates for our NoSQL data is because it is provided by Google Cloud, which fits our needs. Most of our infrastructure is on Google Cloud, so when we think about the NoSQL database, the first thing we thought about is Google Cloud Datastore. And it proves itself.
Pinecone and IBM watsonx.data (Milvus in our case) both work great as a full-managed cloud-based vector database. We selected IBM watsonx.data because it integrates well with watson.ai and is a little more beginner friendly than Pinecone, but I think both are great anyway.