DBMS > 4D vs. Adabas vs. Couchbase vs. NCache vs. ObjectBox

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Adabas vs. Couchbase vs. NCache vs. ObjectBox

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

OLTP - DBMS for mainframes and Linux/Unix/Windows environments

used typically together with the Natural programming platform

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

Open-Source and Enterprise in-memory Key-Value Store

Extremely fast embedded database for small devices, IoT and Mobile

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Document store
Search engine

Using distributed Lucene

Time Series DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	2.58
Rank	#108	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	0.94
Rank	#195	Overall
	#29	Key-value stores

Score	1.20
Rank	#170	Overall
	#5	Object oriented DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

www.softwareag.com/en_corporate/platform/adabas-natural.html

www.couchbase.com

www.alachisoft.com/ncache

objectbox.io

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

docs.couchbase.com

www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs

docs.objectbox.io

Developer

4D, Inc

Software AG

Couchbase, Inc.

Alachisoft

ObjectBox Limited

Initial release

1984

1971

2011

2005

2017

Current release

v20, April 2023

Server: 7.2, June 2023; Mobile: 3.1, March 2022; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), June 2023

5.3.3, April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

Open Source

Enterprise Edition available

Open Source

Apache License 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C#, .NET, .NET Core, Java

C and C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Windows

Android
iOS
Linux
macOS
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are Lists, Queues, Hashsets, Dictionary and Counter

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

SQL-like query syntax and LINQ for searching the cache. Cache Synchronization with SQL Server using SQL dependency.

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

HTTP API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway
SOAP-based API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway

CLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data

IDistributedCache
JCache
LINQ
Proprietary native API

Proprietary native API

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

Natural

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
.Net Core
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

C
C++
Dart
Go
Java
JavaScript

planned (as of Jan 2019)
Kotlin
Python

planned (as of Jan 2019)
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

in Natural

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

support for stored procedures with SQL-Server CLR

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Notifications

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

yes, with additonal products like Adabas Cluster Services, Adabas Parallel Services, Adabas Vista

Automatic Sharding

yes

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

yes, with selectable consistency level

online/offline synchronization between client and server

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Strong Eventual Consistency over WAN with Conflict Resolution using Bridge Topology

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

optimistic locking and pessimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

only with OS-specific tools (e.g. IBM RACF, CA Top Secret)

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.

Authentication to access the cache via Active Directory/LDAP (possible roles: user, administrator)

yes

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

Bank of America, Citi, Natures Way, Charter Spectrum, Barclays, Henry Schein, GBM,...
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Market metrics

Market Leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005.
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Licensing and pricing models

NCache Open Source is free on an as-is basis without any support. NCache Enterprise...
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News

The first On-Device Vector Database: ObjectBox 4.0
16 May 2024

Edge AI: The era of on-device AI
23 April 2024

In-Memory Database Use Cases
15 February 2024

Data Viewer for Objects – announcing ObjectBox Admin
14 November 2023

Vector Databases for Edge AI
9 August 2023

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.