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Dolt vs Noms: What are the differences?
Introduction
Dolt and Noms are both distributed version-controlled databases that offer the capability of versioning and collaborating on structured data. However, there are several key differences between the two.
Data Structure: The primary difference between Dolt and Noms lies in their underlying data structure. Dolt uses a traditional row-based table structure similar to a relational database, while Noms uses a tree-based structure that enables hierarchical data organization and reference tracking.
Data Mutability: Dolt allows users to make changes to a dataset by adding, modifying, or deleting rows within a table, similar to how a typical database operates. In comparison, Noms treats data as immutable values, which means once a value is added, it cannot be changed. Instead, any modifications create new values while maintaining a reference to the old ones.
Concurrency Management: Dolt handles concurrent access to data by utilizing a three-way merge strategy, which allows multiple users to concurrently add and modify rows. On the other hand, Noms uses a conflict-free replicated data type (CRDT) approach, enabling concurrent operations without conflict resolution.
Collaboration Model: Dolt is designed around a model similar to Git, where datasets can be cloned, branched, and merged between different repositories or forks. In contrast, Noms is built with collaboration in mind, offering seamless synchronization and conflict resolution features that allow for real-time collaboration on shared datasets.
Query Language: Dolt supports the widely-used SQL query language, allowing users to perform complex data manipulations and analysis. Noms, on the other hand, does not have built-in query language support. Instead, it provides a powerful API for querying and manipulating data programmatically using various programming languages.
Integration with External Applications: Dolt provides integrations with popular external tools and applications such as Tableau, R, and Python, allowing users to leverage their existing workflows and tools seamlessly. Noms, on the other hand, primarily focuses on its own API and may require more custom development for integration with external applications.
In summary, the key differences between Dolt and Noms include their underlying data structures, approach to data mutability, concurrency management strategies, collaboration models, query language support, and integration capabilities with external applications.
