DBMS > 4D vs. Adabas vs. FileMaker vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Adabas vs. FileMaker vs. Snowflake

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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

FileMaker is a cross-platform RDBMS that includes a GUI frontend.

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Multivalue DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	2.47
Rank	#110	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	2.79
Rank	#102	Overall
	#2	Multivalue DBMS

Score	47.91
Rank	#20	Overall
	#14	Relational DBMS

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

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

www.claris.com/filemaker

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

www.claris.com/resources/documentation

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

4D, Inc

Software AG

Claris

a subsidiary of Apple

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

1984

1971

1983

2014

Current release

v20, April 2023

19.4.1, November 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

iOS

client part only
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

A http query request can return the data in XML format

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

yes

via plugins

yes

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

Filemaker WebDirect
JDBC
ODBC

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

Natural

PHP

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

in Natural

yes

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

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

none

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Source-replica replication, warm standby

since Version 14

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

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.

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

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

simple rights management via user accounts and connection to external directory services

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

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