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DBMS > 4D vs. Milvus vs. PostgreSQL vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Milvus vs. PostgreSQL vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
Name4D infoformer name: 4th Dimension  Xexclude from comparisonMilvus  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionApplication development environment with integrated database management systemA DBMS designed for efficient storage of vector data and vector similarity searchesWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelRelational DBMSVector DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Search engine
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.58
Rank#108  Overall
#54  Relational DBMS
Score2.31
Rank#113  Overall
#3  Vector DBMS
Score645.54
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score5.98
Rank#56  Overall
#5  Search engines
Websitewww.4d.commilvus.iowww.postgresql.orgsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationdeveloper.4d.commilvus.io/­docs/­overview.mdwww.postgresql.org/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docs
Developer4D, IncPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerSphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release198420191989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2001
Current releasev20, April 20232.3.4, January 202416.2, February 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache Version 2.0Open Source infoBSDOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Zilliz Cloud – Cloud-native service for MilvusAiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
Implementation languageC++, GoCC++
Server operating systemsOS X
Windows
Linux
macOS info10.14 or later
Windows infowith WSL 2 enabled
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesVector, Numeric and Stringyesno
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.yesnoyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesyesnoyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoclose to SQL 92noyes infostandard with numerous extensionsSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsODBC
RESTful HTTP API infoby using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices
RESTful HTTP APIADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languages4D proprietary IDE
PHP
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyesnouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.no
Triggersyesnoyesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesnoneShardingpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replicationSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsnone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyBounded Staleness
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Session Consistency
Tunable Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesnoyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnoACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesno
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers and groupsRole based access control and fine grained access rightsfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardno
More information provided by the system vendor
4D infoformer name: 4th DimensionMilvusPostgreSQLSphinx
Specific characteristicsMilvus is an open-source and cloud-native vector database built for production-ready...
» more
Competitive advantagesHighly available, versatile, and robust with millisecond latency. Supports batch...
» more
Typical application scenariosRAG: retrieval augmented generation Video media : video understanding, video deduplication....
» more
Key customersMilvus is trusted by thousands of enterprises, including PayPal, eBay, IKEA, LINE,...
» more
Market metricsAs of January 2024, 25k+ GitHub stars 10M+ downloads and installations​ ​ 3k+ enterprise...
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Licensing and pricing modelsMilvus was released under the open-source Apache License 2.0 in October 2019. Fully-managed...
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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

More resources
4D infoformer name: 4th DimensionMilvusPostgreSQLSphinx
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