DBMS > 4D vs. AlaSQL vs. FoundationDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. AlaSQL vs. FoundationDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

JavaScript DBMS library

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	2.58
Rank	#108	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	0.46
Rank	#260	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#121	Relational DBMS

Score	1.03
Rank	#190	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#89	Relational DBMS

Score	645.54
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.31
Rank	#163	Overall
	#74	Relational DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

alasql.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.postgresql.org

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

apple.github.io/foundationdb

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1

Developer

4D, Inc

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

FoundationDB

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

1984

2014

2013

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

1998

Current release

v20, April 2023

6.2.28, November 2020

16.3, May 2024

11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

BSD

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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Implementation language

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

JavaScript API

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

JavaScript

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C
C++
Java
PL/SQL

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

in SQL-layer only

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

PL/SQL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

none

yes

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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

Related products and services

3rd parties

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