DBMS > 4D vs. IBM Cloudant vs. IRONdb vs. PostgreSQL vs. Teradata Aster

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. IBM Cloudant vs. IRONdb vs. PostgreSQL vs. Teradata Aster

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

IRONdb seems to be discontinued. Therefore it is excluded from the DB-Engines Ranking.

Teradata Aster has been integrated into other Teradata systems and therefore will be removed from the DB-Engines ranking.

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

Database as a Service offering based on Apache CouchDB

A distributed Time Series DBMS with a focus on scalability, fault tolerance and operational simplicity

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Platform for big data analytics on multistructured data sources and types

Primary database model

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	2.47
Rank	#110	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	2.75
Rank	#104	Overall
	#19	Document stores

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

www.ibm.com/products/cloudant

www.circonus.com/solutions/time-series-database/

www.postgresql.org

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

cloud.ibm.com/docs/Cloudant

docs.circonus.com/irondb/category/getting-started

www.postgresql.org/docs

Developer

4D, Inc

IBM, Apache Software Foundation

IBM acquired Cloudant in February 2014

Circonus LLC.

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Teradata

Initial release

1984

2010

2017

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2005

Current release

v20, April 2023

V0.10.20, January 2018

16.3, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

BSD

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.

PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.
Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.

Implementation language

Erlang

C and C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

hosted

Linux

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

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Flexible Schema (defined schema, partial schema, schema free)

defined schema within the relational store; partial schema or schema free in the Aster File Store

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

text, numeric, histograms

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.

yes

in Aster File Store

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

SQL-like query language (Circonus Analytics Query Language: CAQL)

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

HTTP API

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

C#
Java
JavaScript
Objective-C
PHP
Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C
C#
C++
Java
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

View functions (Map-Reduce) in JavaScript

yes, in Lua

user defined functions

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

R packages

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

Automatic, metric affinity per node

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

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

configurable replication factor, datacenter aware

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

yes

Dimension tables are replicated across all nodes in the cluster. The number of replicas for the file store can be configured.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

SQL Map-Reduce Framework

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Immediate consistency per node, eventual consistency across nodes

Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

atomic operations within a document possible

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Optimistic locking

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

Access rights for users can be defined per database

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

3rd parties

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
» more

Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
» more

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
» more

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking
2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

show all

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Recent citations in the news

Cloudant Best (and Worst) Practices — Part 1
18 March 2019, IBM

Intro to Enterprise Cloud Storage: How to Set Up a Cloudant Database
1 December 2014, Linux.com

IBM Expands Cloud Database Services with Kubernetes
26 September 2019, EnterpriseAI

IBM Code Engine and IBM Cloudant: Serverless Data and Infrastructure
16 August 2021, IBM

IBM to Purchase Cloudant Database as a service (DBaaS) Provider
22 March 2014, App Developer Magazine

provided by Google News

Application observability firm Apica buys telemetry data startup Circonus and adds more funding
21 February 2024, SiliconANGLE News

Apica Acquires Telemetry Data Management Pioneer Circonus And Lands New Funding
22 February 2024, Datanami

Apica gets $6 million in funding and buys Circonus -
21 February 2024, Enterprise Times

provided by Google News

PostgreSQL is Now Faster than Pinecone, 75% Cheaper, with New Open Source Extensions
11 June 2024, PR Newswire

Timescale unveils high-performance AI vector database extensions for PostgreSQL
11 June 2024, SiliconANGLE News

A New Era AI Databases: PostgreSQL with pgvectorscale Outperforms Pinecone and Cuts Costs by 75% with New Open-Source Extensions
12 June 2024, MarkTechPost

PostgreSQL Tutorial: Definition, Commands, & Features
4 June 2024, Simplilearn

Raise the bar on AI-powered app development with Azure Database for PostgreSQL
5 June 2024, Microsoft

provided by Google News

Northwestern Analytics Partners with Teradata Aster to Host Hackathon
23 May 2014, Northwestern Engineering

Teradata Provides the Simplest Way to Bring the Science of Data to the Art of Business
22 September 2011, PR Newswire

Teradata's Aster shows how the flowers of fraud bloom
23 April 2015, The Register

Case study: Siemens reduces train failures with Teradata Aster
12 September 2016, RCR Wireless News

Teradata unveils improved QueryGrid connectors
21 April 2015, CIO

provided by Google News

Share this page