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

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Adabas vs. Lovefield 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

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

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	2.58
Rank	#108	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.29
Rank	#293	Overall
	#133	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

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

google.github.io/lovefield

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

4D, Inc

Software AG

Google

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

1984

1971

2014

Current release

v20, April 2023

2.1.12, February 2017

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

Implementation language

JavaScript

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

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

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

Natural

JavaScript

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

in Natural

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Using read-only observers

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

none

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

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

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

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

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