Continuing the February job trends here is another installment. Today, we are looking at NoSQL job trends. I am continuing to focus the list of NoSQL offerings on the same 9 tools. So, the list includes Cassandra, Redis, Voldemort, SimpleDB, CouchDB, MongoDB, HBase, Hypertable and Riak. As was stated previously, Hadoop continues to be the clear leader in demand and tends to flattens the trends of other solutions. I am watching the trend to see if the other tools are close enough to make the graphs useful, but at this point, Hadoop is not included.

First, we look at the trends from Indeed:

MongoDB demand is clearly outpacing the other tools at this point. Cassandra continues with a very positive trend, though it continues to lag behind MongoDB. There was a slight dip for almost all of the tools starting about 9 months ago, but there has been a significant rebound. HBase and Redis both have solid positive trends, even if they are not gaining as rapidly as MongoDB or Cassandra. However, both HBase and Redis have seen a lot of positive blog attention lately, so demand could grow more quickly in the near future. CouchDB is still growing, but does not have the pace of the leading tools. This trend could actually flatten due to the recent confusion around the product direction. Apache is trying to steward it forward, but only time will tell. Riak growth in the past year has been good, and it is trying to break out of the lower pack. SimpleDB and Voldemort have fairly flat trends which is not good in this crowd of tools. They could be marginalized very quickly. Hypertable is not really showing any demand, and this could be the last time it is included in this list.

Now, let’s look at the short term trends of SimpleHired:

SimplyHired’s short-term trends show some differences than the Indeed trends. MongoDB may be leading, but it is not far ahead of Cassandra. HBase and Redis show similar trends to those on Indeed. CouchDB has a flatter trend here, though it is outpacing the last few tools. Riak is showing some positive signs over the past few months, but not enough to really outpace SimpleDB. SimpleDB demand has dropped significantly over the past 8 months, though there is a slight upturn towards the end of 2011. Voldemort demand is not showing a positive trend, staying flat for most of 2011, and Hypertable demand barely registers. Overall, the SimplyHired trends are just not as positive as the Indeed trends.

Now, let’s look at the relative growth from Indeed:

The first thing you should see on this graph is the growth since the middle of 2009. Another notable item is that MongoDB is showing 80,000% growth. So, the scale of this graph is totally confusing, although it does point to the rapid growth in demand for NoSQL skills. Redis has 45,000% growth which means it should be watched over the course of the next year. At this growth rate, it could quickly grow into a major challenger to MongoDB and Cassandra. HBase is also growing rapidly at 20,000%, and Cassandra growth trails a bit sitting around 13,000%. The “laggards” of the group are CouchDB at 5000%, Riak showing similar growth, SimpleDB around 2500% and Voldemort showing slight positive growth. Hypertable is either hidden or just not growing much at all. In either case, that is a terrible sign for a tool in a rapidly growing segment.

MongoDB is starting to distance itself in terms of demand, which is interesting given that Cassandra is backed by Facebook. Redis is starting to gain in demand and is definitely a tool to watch this year. HBase continues to grow partially due to its Hadoop heritage as well as gaining some interest on its own. Riak and CouchDB are products to watch, but for different reasons. Riak was showing growth that might pull it out of the lower tier, but it has not been able to distance itself yet. CouchDB has had major messaging issues with Couchbase going its own way, and Apache trying to clean up the mess left behind. With the Apache brand, CouchDB could still show demand, but this is definitely a critical year for the tool. The other tools are quickly falling into “also ran” status.

As always, if there are other NoSQL tools that should be included, please let me know in the comments.