Cassandra feature support

Yugabyte Cloud Query Language (YCQL) has its roots in the Cassandra Query Language (CQL). The following tables highlight the important differences in feature support between YCQL and Cassandra 3.4.2.

Data types

Primitive Types

	Category	Types
{{<icon/yes>}}	Integers	BIGINT, COUNTER, INT, INTEGER, SMALLINT, TINYINT, VARINT
{{<icon/yes>}}	Numbers	DECIMAL, DOUBLE, FLOAT
{{<icon/yes>}}	Binary data	BLOB
{{<icon/yes>}}	Boolean	BOOLEAN
{{<icon/yes>}}	Date/Time	DATE, TIME, TIMESTAMP
{{<icon/yes>}}	Collections	FROZEN, LIST, MAP, SET
{{<icon/yes>}}	IP Addresses	INET
{{<icon/yes>}}	JSON	JSONB
{{<icon/yes>}}	String	TEXT, VARCHAR
{{<icon/yes>}}	UUID	TIMEUUID, UUID
{{<icon/no>}}	TUPLE
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User defined data types

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Create new type	CREATE TYPE
{{<icon/yes>}}	Delete types	DROP TYPE
{{<icon/no>}}	Alter types
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DDL

Keyspaces

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Creating keyspace	CREATE KEYSPACE
{{<icon/yes>}}	Check before creating keyspace	CREATE KEYSPACE IF NOT EXISTS
{{<icon/partial>}}	Modifying keyspace	ALTER KEYSPACE - No Op
{{<icon/no>}}	Check before altering keyspace	ALTER KEYSPACE IF EXISTS

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Tables

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Adding columns	ADD COLUMN
{{<icon/yes>}}	Altering tables	ALTER TABLE
{{<icon/yes>}}	Removing columns	DROP COLUMN
{{<icon/yes>}}	Rename column's name	RENAME COLUMN
{{<icon/no>}}	Check before altering tables	ALTER TABLE IF EXISTS
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Indexes

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Adding indexes	CREATE INDEX
{{<icon/yes>}}	Removing indexes	DROP INDEX
{{<icon/yes>}}	Partial indexes	Partial indexes
{{<icon/yes>}}	Covering indexes	Covering indexes
{{<icon/yes>}}	Unique indexes	Unique indexes
{{<icon/no>}}	Adding indexes on Collection	Cannot create index on map/list/set/full jsonb/udt and the keys,values,entries of a collection
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DML

Select

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Select columns	SELECT * FROM ...
{{<icon/yes>}}	Conditional select with [NOT] IN clause	SELECT ... WHERE key IN ...
{{<icon/yes>}}	Conditional select with IF clause	SELECT ... IF ...
{{<icon/yes>}}	Select using CONTAINS [KEY]	SELECT * FROM ...
{{<icon/no>}}	SELECT JSON	JSONB is supported as a native type
{{<icon/no>}}	Select with PER PARTITION LIMIT
{{<icon/no>}}	Grouping results with GROUP BY
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Update

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/partial>}}	Update columns	UPDATE - Only single row updates
{{<icon/partial>}}	Conditional update with [NOT] IN clause	Only single row updates
{{<icon/yes>}}	Conditional update with IF clause	UPDATE ... IF
{{<icon/yes>}}	Update with USING clause	UPDATE ... USING
{{<icon/no>}}	Conditional Update using CONTAINS [KEY]	UPDATE ... WHERE <col> CONTAINS ...
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Delete

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/partial>}}	Delete rows	DELETE - Only single row deletes
{{<icon/yes>}}	Conditional delete with IF clause	DELETE ... IF
{{<icon/yes>}}	Delete with USING clause	DELETE ... USING
{{<icon/partial>}}	Conditional delete with [NOT] IN clause	Only single row deletes
{{<icon/no>}}	Conditional delete using CONTAINS [KEY]	DELETE ... WHERE <col> CONTAINS ...
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Insert

	Operation	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Adding columns	INSERT ... INTO ...
{{<icon/no>}}	INSERT JSON	JSONB is supported as a native type
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Transactions

	Feature	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Begin a transaction	BEGIN TRANSACTION
{{<icon/yes>}}	End a transaction	END TRANSACTION
{{<icon/yes>}}	SQL style transaction start	START TRANSACTION
{{<icon/yes>}}	SQL style transaction commit	COMMIT
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Security

	Component	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Roles	Manage users and roles
{{<icon/yes>}}	Permissions	Grant privileges
{{<icon/no>}}	Users	Legacy Cassandra feature (CREATE, DROP, ALTER, LIST)
{{<icon/no>}}	LIST ROLES	But can be done using query
{{<icon/no>}}	LIST PERMISSIONS	But can be done using query
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Other Features

	Component	Details
{{<icon/yes>}}	Aggregates	AVG, COUNT, MAX, MIN, SUM
{{<icon/yes>}}	Built-in Functions	Now, DateOf, CurrentTime, ToTime, UUID ...
{{<icon/yes>}}	Operators	Binary, Unary, Null operators
{{<icon/partial>}}	Batch	Only programmatically via BatchStatement
{{<icon/no>}}	Materialized Views
{{<icon/no>}}	Triggers
{{<icon/no>}}	User Defined Aggregates(UDA)
{{<icon/no>}}	User-defined functions(UDF)
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Learn more

• Comparison with Apache Cassandra
• YCQL command reference