Indexes and constraints in YugabyteDB YCQL

As with tables, indexes in YugabyteDB are stored in a distributed manner - that is, they are split into tablets and replicated. Updates to indexes are transactional, which means that row updates and the corresponding index updates occur as a single transaction. Similar to tables, they are stored in LSM format.

The YCQL API supports most of the Cassandra index semantics while incorporating other improvements.

The following table lists different types of indexes and their support in YCQL.

	Type	Description
{{<icon/yes>}}	Primary key	Unique key that identifies the row
{{<icon/no>}}	Foreign key	Link to a column in another table
{{<icon/yes>}}	Secondary index	Index on columns other than the primary key
{{<icon/yes>}}	Unique index	Set one or many columns to be unique
{{<icon/yes>}}	Multi-column index	Index on multiple columns for faster scan with lesser rows
{{<icon/yes>}}	Partial index	Indexes that apply to only some rows of the table
{{<icon/yes>}}	Covering index	Store other columns in the index for faster retrieval
{{<icon/no>}}	Expression index	Index based on a functional operation on columns
{{<icon/no>}}	GIN index	Generalized inverted index for fast text search
{{<icon/no>}}	GIST Index	For spatial search.

Learn more

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{{<index/item title="Primary keys" body="Explore the use of primary keys in YCQL." href="primary-key-ycql/" icon="fa-thin fa-bars">}}

{{<index/item title="Secondary and multi-column indexes" body="Explore indexes to optimize your database performance with examples." href="secondary-indexes-ycql/" icon="fa-thin fa-list-ol">}}

{{<index/item title="Unique indexes" body="Explore unique indexes in YCQL with examples." href="unique-index-ycql/" icon="fa-thin fa-bars-staggered">}}

{{<index/item title="Partial indexes" body="Explore partial indexes in YCQL with examples." href="partial-index-ycql/" icon="fa-thin fa-list-check">}}

{{<index/item title="Covering indexes" body="Explore Covering indexes in YCQL with examples." href="covering-index-ycql/" icon="fa-thin fa-table-list">}}

{{<index/item title="Secondary indexes with JSONB" body="Create covering and partial indexes with JSONB columns." href="secondary-indexes-with-jsonb-ycql/" icon="fa-thin fa-list-ol">}}

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