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Redis vs RethinkDB: What are the differences?
Introduction:
Redis and RethinkDB are both popular NoSQL databases used for different purposes in the field of data storage and retrieval. They have various key differences that set them apart from each other. In this article, we will explore and analyze these differences in detail.
Data Model: Redis is primarily a key-value store that allows users to store and retrieve data using key-value pairs. On the other hand, RethinkDB is a document-oriented database that uses a JSON-like structure for data storage. It allows users to store and manipulate complex data structures as documents.
Scalability: Redis is known to be highly scalable due to its built-in support for clustering and sharding. It provides horizontal scalability by distributing the data across multiple nodes. RethinkDB, on the other hand, does not natively support sharding, making it less suitable for large-scale deployments requiring automatic data distribution.
Querying and Indexing: Redis provides limited querying capabilities and lacks advanced querying options, as it primarily focuses on simple key-value operations. In contrast, RethinkDB offers a powerful query language with rich features like filtering, grouping, and aggregation. It also provides secondary indexing, making it easier to search and retrieve data efficiently.
Real-Time Data: RethinkDB is designed with real-time applications in mind. It has built-in support for change feeds, allowing developers to write reactive applications that can easily track changes in the database and push them to connected clients in real-time. Redis, although not specifically built for real-time applications, can be used for pub/sub messaging and implements basic message queues.
Durability and Persistence: Redis offers different levels of persistence, including snapshots and append-only files (AOF). It can be configured to store data to the disk and recover it in case of failures. RethinkDB provides automatic data durability by default. It ensures that data is persisted to disk across multiple replicas, providing higher fault tolerance.
Community Support: Redis has a massive and active community with extensive documentation, various libraries, and a wide range of tools built around it. It is widely adopted and used in production environments. RethinkDB, despite its unique features, has a smaller and comparatively less active community. However, it still has a dedicated user base and community support available.
In Summary, Redis is a key-value store with strong scalability and messaging capabilities, while RethinkDB is a document-oriented database with powerful querying and real-time features, but lacks native sharding and larger community support.
Pros of Redis
- Performance886
- Super fast542
- Ease of use513
- In-memory cache444
- Advanced key-value cache324
- Open source194
- Easy to deploy182
- Stable164
- Free155
- Fast121
- High-Performance42
- High Availability40
- Data Structures35
- Very Scalable32
- Replication24
- Great community22
- Pub/Sub22
- "NoSQL" key-value data store19
- Hashes16
- Sets13
- Sorted Sets11
- NoSQL10
- Lists10
- Async replication9
- BSD licensed9
- Bitmaps8
- Integrates super easy with Sidekiq for Rails background8
- Keys with a limited time-to-live7
- Open Source7
- Lua scripting6
- Strings6
- Awesomeness for Free5
- Hyperloglogs5
- Transactions4
- Outstanding performance4
- Runs server side LUA4
- LRU eviction of keys4
- Feature Rich4
- Written in ANSI C4
- Networked4
- Data structure server3
- Performance & ease of use3
- Dont save data if no subscribers are found2
- Automatic failover2
- Easy to use2
- Temporarily kept on disk2
- Scalable2
- Existing Laravel Integration2
- Channels concept2
- Object [key/value] size each 500 MB2
- Simple2
Pros of RethinkDB
- Powerful query language48
- Excellent dashboard46
- JSON42
- Distributed database41
- Open source38
- Reactive25
- Atomic updates16
- Joins15
- MVCC concurrency9
- Hadoop-style map/reduce9
- Geospatial support4
- Real-time, open-source, scalable4
- YC Company2
- A NoSQL DB with joins2
- Great Admin UI2
- Changefeeds: no polling needed to get updates2
- Fast, easily scalable, great customer support2
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Cons of Redis
- Cannot query objects directly15
- No secondary indexes for non-numeric data types3
- No WAL1