Question: What are the key differences between DynamoDB and Elasticsearch?
Answered by Rafal Wilinski
Answer
Amazon's DynamoDB and Elasticsearch are both highly scalable, managed services that can store large amounts of data. However, they do so in different ways and are used for varying applications. Here are some of the key differences:
1. Data Model
DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. It uses a key-value store with document support as its primary data model, supporting both document and key-value data structures. This makes it well suited for all applications that need consistent, single-digit millisecond latency at any scale.
# Example of how to put an item in DynamoDB using boto3 in Python import boto3 dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb') table = dynamodb.Table('my_table_name') response = table.put_item( Item={ 'name': 'John', 'age': 30, 'job': 'Software Engineer' } )
Elasticsearch is a search engine based on the Lucene library. It's a real-time, distributed storage, search, and analytics engine. Essentially, it’s optimized for textual content and excels at full-text search - something DynamoDB doesn't support inherently.
# Example of how to put a document in Elasticsearch using elasticsearch-py in Python from datetime import datetime from elasticsearch import Elasticsearch es = Elasticsearch() doc = { 'author': 'John Doe', 'text': 'Elasticsearch: cool. bonsai cool.', 'timestamp': datetime.now(), } res = es.index(index="test-index", id=1, body=doc) print(res['result'])
2. Use Case
DynamoDB is ideal for web, mobile, gaming, ad tech, IoT, and many other applications. It's built to support applications that need access patterns with item-level isolation and offers features like ACID transactions.
Elasticsearch, on the other hand, is designed to handle use cases where complex queries, such as free text searches, fuzzy matching, or analytics-based queries, are required. It's extremely useful when you want to analyze log or event data or if you need a powerful full-text search engine.
3. Integration:
Both services integrate well with other AWS services, but due to their differing functionality, they're often used with different sets of services. For example, DynamoDB might be used in combination with Lambda, API Gateway, and S3, whereas Elasticsearch is often used with Kibana for data visualization, Logstash for centralized logging, and Beats for data shippers.
Remember, the choice between DynamoDB and Elasticsearch largely depends on your specific use case. They're not mutually exclusive and can even be used together in a single application. For example, an application could use DynamoDB for storing data and then replicate that data over to Elasticsearch for complex querying and analytics.
Other Common DynamoDB FAQ (with Answers)
- Is DynamoDB based on MongoDB?
- Is DynamoDB expensive?
- Can DynamoDB trigger AWS Lambda?
- Can Django use DynamoDB?
- Can DynamoDB run on Mac OS?
- Can DynamoDB have nested objects?
- Is DynamoDB similar to MongoDB?
- Why is Single-Table-Design popular in DynamoDB?
- Can Power BI connect to DynamoDB?
- Can a DynamoDB range key be a GSI key?
- Is DynamoDB a relational database?
- Is DynamoDB open source?
- Can QuickSight read DynamoDB?
- Is DynamoDB document-based?
- Can DynamoDB have null values?