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Cloudant vs Elasticsearch: What are the differences?
## Key Differences between Cloudant and Elasticsearch
Cloudant and Elasticsearch are two popular databases used in various applications. While they both offer valuable features, there are several key differences between them that developers should be aware of when choosing the right database for their project.
1. **Data Model**: Cloudant is a NoSQL JSON document store that stores data in a schema-less format, making it flexible for handling complex data structures. On the other hand, Elasticsearch utilizes a document-oriented data model that indexes and searches structured or unstructured data efficiently.
2. **Search Capabilities**: Elasticsearch is known for its powerful full-text search capabilities, including fuzzy matching, autocomplete, and relevance scoring, making it ideal for applications that require advanced search functionality. Cloudant, while it also supports search indexes, is not as robust as Elasticsearch in terms of search capabilities.
3. **Scalability**: Elasticsearch is designed for horizontal scalability, allowing users to easily add more nodes to handle increasing amounts of data and user queries. Cloudant, on the other hand, offers automatic sharding and replication for scalability but may require more manual intervention compared to Elasticsearch.
4. **Indexing Approach**: Elasticsearch uses inverted indices to enhance query performance, allowing for fast search operations on large amounts of data. Cloudant supports secondary indexes for queries but may not be as optimized for search performance compared to Elasticsearch.
5. **Consistency Model**: Cloudant uses a multi-master replication model to achieve eventual consistency across distributed data centers, ensuring data availability and durability. Elasticsearch, while supporting replication, focuses more on data distribution and search performance than consistency across nodes.
6. **Data Replication**: Cloudant provides automatic data replication across multiple data centers for disaster recovery and high availability. In contrast, Elasticsearch requires additional configuration and setup to implement data replication for fault tolerance.
In Summary, the choice between Cloudant and Elasticsearch depends on the specific requirements of your project, with Elasticsearch excelling in search capabilities and scalability, while Cloudant offers a flexible data model and strong consistency features.
Hey everybody! (1) I am developing an android application. I have data of around 3 million record (less than a TB). I want to save that data in the cloud. Which company provides the best cloud database services that would suit my scenario? It should be secured, long term useable, and provide better services. I decided to use Firebase Realtime database. Should I stick with Firebase or are there any other companies that provide a better service?
(2) I have the functionality of searching data in my app. Same data (less than a TB). Which search solution should I use in this case? I found Elasticsearch and Algolia search. It should be secure and fast. If any other company provides better services than these, please feel free to suggest them.
Thank you!
Hi Rana, good question! From my Firebase experience, 3 million records is not too big at all, as long as the cost is within reason for you. With Firebase you will be able to access the data from anywhere, including an android app, and implement fine-grained security with JSON rules. The real-time-ness works perfectly. As a fully managed database, Firebase really takes care of everything. The only thing to watch out for is if you need complex query patterns - Firestore (also in the Firebase family) can be a better fit there.
To answer question 2: the right answer will depend on what's most important to you. Algolia is like Firebase is that it is fully-managed, very easy to set up, and has great SDKs for Android. Algolia is really a full-stack search solution in this case, and it is easy to connect with your Firebase data. Bear in mind that Algolia does cost money, so you'll want to make sure the cost is okay for you, but you will save a lot of engineering time and never have to worry about scale. The search-as-you-type performance with Algolia is flawless, as that is a primary aspect of its design. Elasticsearch can store tons of data and has all the flexibility, is hosted for cheap by many cloud services, and has many users. If you haven't done a lot with search before, the learning curve is higher than Algolia for getting the results ranked properly, and there is another learning curve if you want to do the DevOps part yourself. Both are very good platforms for search, Algolia shines when buliding your app is the most important and you don't want to spend many engineering hours, Elasticsearch shines when you have a lot of data and don't mind learning how to run and optimize it.
Rana - we use Cloud Firestore at our startup. It handles many million records without any issues. It provides you the same set of features that the Firebase Realtime Database provides on top of the indexing and security trims. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure your Cloud Functions have proper exception handling and there are no infinite loop in the code. This will be too costly if not caught quickly.
For search; Algolia is a great option, but cost is a real consideration. Indexing large number of records can be cost prohibitive for most projects. Elasticsearch is a solid alternative, but requires a little additional work to configure and maintain if you want to self-host.
Hope this helps.
Pros of Cloudant
- JSON13
- REST interface7
- Cheap4
- JavaScript support3
- Great syncing1
Pros of Elasticsearch
- Powerful api328
- Great search engine315
- Open source231
- Restful214
- Near real-time search200
- Free98
- Search everything85
- Easy to get started54
- Analytics45
- Distributed26
- Fast search6
- More than a search engine5
- Great docs4
- Awesome, great tool4
- Highly Available3
- Easy to scale3
- Potato2
- Document Store2
- Great customer support2
- Intuitive API2
- Nosql DB2
- Great piece of software2
- Reliable2
- Fast2
- Easy setup2
- Open1
- Easy to get hot data1
- Github1
- Elaticsearch1
- Actively developing1
- Responsive maintainers on GitHub1
- Ecosystem1
- Not stable1
- Scalability1
- Community0
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Cons of Cloudant
Cons of Elasticsearch
- Resource hungry7
- Diffecult to get started6
- Expensive5
- Hard to keep stable at large scale4
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