Availability: Open Source

Programming language: Java

It is a NoSQL database runs on top of HDFS

It can handle very large database tables(billions of rows and millions of columns)

It is not a direct replacement of classic SQL database, however Apache Phoenix project provides a SQL layer for HBase as well as JDBC driver that can be integrated with various analytics and business intelligence applications

Linear and Modular scalability

Easy to use Java API for client access

Replication across the load center

Atomic and strongly consistent row-level operations

High availability through automatic failover

Automatic sharding and load balancing of tables

Near real time look ups

In-memory caching via block cache and bloom filters

Server side processing via filters and co-processors

Data model accommodates a wide range of use cases

Metrics exports via File and Ganglia plugins