DBMS > 4D vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. MongoDB vs. ScyllaDB vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. MongoDB vs. ScyllaDB vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

Cloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.

One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS
Search engine

integrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS

Time Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS

currently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only

Key-value store

Spatial DBMS
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	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	421.65
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	4.75
Rank	#68	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

www.mongodb.com

www.scylladb.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

firebase.google.com/docs/database

www.mongodb.com/docs/manual

docs.scylladb.com

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

4D, Inc

Google

acquired by Google 2014

MongoDB, Inc

ScyllaDB

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

1984

2012

2009

2015

2005

Current release

v20, April 2023

6.0.7, June 2023

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

MongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.
MongoDB Flex @ STACKIT offers managed MongoDB Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.

Scylla Cloud: Create real-time applications that run at global scale with Scylla Cloud, the industry’s most powerful NoSQL DBaaS

Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

hosted

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Although schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.

schema-free

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatial

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

cluster global secondary indices

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interface

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

Actionscript

unofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure

unofficial driver
ColdFusion

unofficial driver
D

unofficial driver
Dart

unofficial driver
Delphi

unofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy

unofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp

unofficial driver
Lua

unofficial driver
MatLab

unofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell

unofficial driver
Prolog

unofficial driver
Python
R

unofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk

unofficial driver
Swift

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

limited functionality with using 'rules'

JavaScript

yes, Lua

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

Partitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.

Sharding

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Eventual Consistency

can be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency

default behaviour

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

yes

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

yes

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights for users and roles

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
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ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
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Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

AI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
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ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

ADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

Hundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
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ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
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ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.