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CockroachDB vs Alopex DB

CockroachDB's layered architecture, per-range Raft, Parallel Commits, and SERIALIZABLE isolation. Also explains how it differs from Alopex DB.

Updated: Oct 11, 2026

What CockroachDB is

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database that runs across multiple nodes. It is designed so that copies of the data survive when a node fails. Its VECTOR type and vector indexes are core features.

How it works

The official architecture documentation describes layers:

  • SQL layer: receives SQL and translates it into KV operations.
  • Transaction layer: handles transactions that span the cluster. Even across multiple ranges or tables, a distributed atomic commit procedure called Parallel Commits keeps them correct. It uses hybrid logical clocks, and in-flight writes are marked with write intents.
  • Distribution layer: presents all data as one huge sorted map divided into contiguous key ranges. Range locations are looked up through a two-level index, meta1 and meta2.
  • Replication layer: replicates each range synchronously to multiple nodes with Raft.
  • Storage layer: uses Pebble, a Go embedded KV store inspired by RocksDB.

Main features

  • Distributed SQL with per-range Raft replication.
  • Distributed transactions (Parallel Commits).
  • A VECTOR type and distributed vector indexes through CREATE VECTOR INDEX (C-SPANN, with pgvector-compatible syntax; hnsw is an alias for C-SPANN).

Limits

The default isolation level is SERIALIZABLE. The documentation says applications must handle retryable errors at this level. It runs as a multi-node cluster.

How it differs from Alopex DB

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database built for multi-node clusters. Alopex DB starts as an embedded single-file database and also runs as an HTTP and gRPC server. Its strength is SQL and vector search at hand, with no cluster to build.

For vector search, CockroachDB has a distributed vector index (C-SPANN), and Alopex DB has an HNSW index. In Alopex DB you choose between exact search and HNSW.

Alopex DB starts from one file and moves to an Alopex DB cluster with the same SQL. Give it a try, starting from the quickstart.

References