Apache Drill vs Comunica
Apache Drill
drill.apache.orgComunica
comunica.devSide by side
| Figure | Apache Drill | Comunica |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Query Engine Software | 8.9 (#2) | 8.8 (#3) |
| License | The Apache Drill site identifies the project as licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. | Comunica is open-source software under the MIT license, which the project says permits use in open and commercial projects. |
| Purpose | Apache Drill is a schema-free SQL query engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and cloud storage. | Comunica is a knowledge graph querying framework for flexible SPARQL and GraphQL queries over decentralized RDF on the Web. |
| Support | The project directs questions to its drill-dev mailing list and welcomes contributions. | The project points users to its community chat, GitHub Discussions, and issue tracker, and notes that it may not be able to resolve every issue. |
Plans
In their own words
Apache Drill
Apache Drill is a schema-free SQL query engine for Hadoop, NoSQL databases, and cloud storage. It can query raw data where it resides without first loading it, defining schemas, or transforming it. Its JSON data model supports complex and nested structures, and a single query can join data across multiple datastores. Listed sources include HBase, MongoDB, HDFS, Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Swift, NAS, and local files. JDBC and ODBC drivers connect Drill to tools including Tableau, Qlik, MicroStrategy, Spotfire, SAS, and Excel; developers can also use its REST API in custom applications. Drill can run embedded on a laptop or in distributed mode on a server cluster, and the homepage lists Mac, Windows, and Linux. Documented security options include Kerberos, username and password authentication, Digest, authorization, and impersonation. The software is free under Apache License 2.0. A compatibility limit: official support for Hadoop 2 and Java 8 was dropped with Drill 1.22.0.
Comunica
Comunica is an open-source framework for querying knowledge graphs with SPARQL and GraphQL over decentralized RDF on the Web. It can treat multiple sources as one virtual dataset and identify a source type from its URL. Built-in source types include RDF files, SPARQL endpoints, Triple Pattern Fragments, JavaScript RDF sources, serialized datasets, and HDT files. The framework parses Turtle, JSON-LD, RDF/XML, N-Triples, TriG, and N-Quads, and can serialize results as SPARQL JSON, XML, CSV, TSV, or RDF formats. It supports several SPARQL 1.2 specifications, while SPARQL 1.2 entailment regimes and the Graph Store HTTP Protocol are listed as unsupported. The browser client provides SPARQL and GraphQL-LD queries, Solid authentication, selectable sources, and geospatial results. Developers can combine modules into custom engines or add components, and use Comunica in browsers, JavaScript applications, or from the command line. The default SPARQL engine does not query local files; a separate file engine is intended for that purpose. The project is MIT-licensed for open and commercial use.