Apache Ignite Replacement:
Why Redisson is the Best Alternative to Apache Ignite
Apache Ignite is an open-source, in-memory computing platform that is a popular choice for implementing distributed databases. Ignite is horizontally scalable, durable, and highly fault-tolerant, which makes it good for heavy enterprise workloads.
While Apache Ignite has a lot of benefits to recommend it, it's not the right solution for every organization. Redis is an in-memory data structure store for distributed databases that has many advantages over Apache Ignite - especially when it's enhanced with third-party Redis Java clients such as Redisson.
Below, we'll discuss why Redis and Redisson are the best replacement for Apache Ignite.
Apache Ignite vs. Redis (with Redisson)
Both Redis and Apache Ignite are open-source projects for building distributed databases that are highly compatible with the Java programming language. What's more, Ignite includes limited support for Redis, allowing Redis users to store and retrieve cached information.
However, there are also important differences between Redis and Apache Ignite. Redis is primarily intended for use as an in-memory non-relational key-value cache, and as such it does not include full support for SQL. Apache Ignite, on the other hand, can also be used as an in-memory data grid or as a relational database.
If you're looking to build a NoSQL distributed database, Redis is already competitive with Apache Ignite out of the box. However, Redis becomes even more attractive when you install a third-party Redis Java client like Redisson, which includes many familiar Java objects, collections, and services. Redisson also includes valuable features such as caching, task scheduling, web sessions, messaging, and microservices.
In the next section, we'll discuss some of Redisson's features that make it a clear winner over Apache Ignite.
Why Redisson is the Best Apache Ignite Replacement
1. Distributed objects, collections, and locks and synchronizers
Both Apache Ignite and Redisson implement a variety of Java distributed objects, collections, and locks and synchronizers. However, Redisson simply has more to offer in this regard.
The list of Java classes offered by Apache Ignite includes:
- Map
- Set
- List
- Queue
- Lock
- Semaphore
- CountDownLatch
- Object holder
- AtomicLong
- Publish/Subscribe
Redisson offers all of the above classes and more, including:
- Multimap
- Deque
- SortedSet
- ScoredSortedSet
- PriorityQueue
- PriorityDeque
- DelayedQueue
- TransferQueue
- RingBuffer
- FairLock
- MultiLock
- ReadWriteLock
- PermitExpirableSemaphore
- AtomicDouble
- Geospatial
- BitSet
- BloomFilter
- BinaryStream
- HyperLogLog
- RateLimiter
2. Caching performance
Caching is a crucial part of database performance, ensuring that repeated queries and computations do not have to be run unnecessarily. Both Redisson and Apache Ignite support a "near cache" that stores frequently accessed data on the heap.
In addition, both Redisson and Apache Ignite offer a JCache API, but Redisson is the clear winner. Only Redisson's JCache API is compatible with the near cache, enabling database operations up to 45 times faster.
This "near cache" advantage for Redisson is also present when integrating with external frameworks such as Spring Cache and Hibernate Cache. While both Redisson and Apache Ignite support these integrations, only with Redisson can you use the near cache.
3. API architecture
Programming models such as asynchronous, reactive, and RxJava2 facilitate the task of asynchronous and parallel programming in Java. Apache Ignite includes partial support for asynchronous architectures, while Redis does not support any of the three.
However, installing Redisson means that Redis handily beats Apache Ignite in this category. Redis+Redisson has full support for all three programming models, helping make developers' lives easier, while Ignite does not support reactive or RxJava2.
4. Custom data serialization
Data that is sent over a network should be serialized so that it can easily be transmitted and reconstructed. However, the data in your database may have many different formats. That's why Redisson includes support for a variety of custom data serialization codecs, including JDK, JSON, Avro, Smile, CBOR, MsgPack, Kryo, FST, LZ4 compression, and Snappy compression.
Apache Ignite, on the other hand, does not support any of the above codecs, which means that you'll have to handle data serialization manually.
5. Ease of use
Rather than managing a large, complex database yourself, it's often more convenient to use a fully managed cloud database service.
Both Redis and Apache Ignite databases can be deployed to major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. However, only Redis databases have support for fully managed cloud database services, such as Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Azure Cache for Redis. This means that Redis databases in the cloud are much easier to use and manage than Apache Ignite.