DBMS > 4D vs. Couchbase vs. Datomic vs. FoundationDB

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Couchbase vs. Datomic vs. FoundationDB

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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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

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

Datomic builds on immutable values, supports point-in-time queries and uses 3rd party systems for durability

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

Primary database model

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

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

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

Score	2.47
Rank	#110	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	16.59
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	1.66
Rank	#144	Overall
	#66	Relational DBMS

Score	1.06
Rank	#185	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#85	Relational DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

www.couchbase.com

www.datomic.com

github.com/apple/foundationdb

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

docs.couchbase.com

docs.datomic.com

apple.github.io/foundationdb

Developer

4D, Inc

Couchbase, Inc.

Cognitect

FoundationDB

Initial release

1984

2011

2012

2013

Current release

v20, April 2023

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

1.0.7075, December 2023

6.2.28, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

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

commercial

limited edition free

Open Source

Apache 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

Java, Clojure

C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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

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

supported in specific SQL layer only

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

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

RESTful HTTP API

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Clojure
Java

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

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

yes

Transaction Functions

in SQL-layer only

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

By using transaction functions

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Automatic Sharding

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

yes

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

Immediate Consistency

Linearizable consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

in SQL-layer only

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

using external storage systems (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Couchbase and others)

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

recommended only for testing and development

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

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

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