Permissioned blockchains and distributed databases: A performance study

Summary Blockchains are increasingly studied in the context of new applications. Permissioned blockchains promise to deal with the issue of complete removal of trust, a notion that is currently the hallmark of the developed society. Before the idea is adopted in contexts where resource efficiency and fast operation is a requirement, one could legitimately ask the question: can permissioned blockchains match the performance of traditional large‐scale databases? This paper compares two popular frameworks, Hyperledger Fabric and Apache Cassandra, as representatives of permissioned blockchains and distributed databases, respectively. We compare their latency for varying workloads and network sizes. The results show that, for small systems, blockchains can start to compete with traditional databases, but also that the difference in consistency models and differences in setup can have a large impact on the resulting performance.