DBMS > Adabas vs. AlaSQL vs. Couchbase vs. FoundationDB vs. GraphDB

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. AlaSQL vs. Couchbase vs. FoundationDB vs. GraphDB

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

OLTP - DBMS for mainframes and Linux/Unix/Windows environments

used typically together with the Natural programming platform

JavaScript DBMS library

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

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

Enterprise-ready RDF and graph database with efficient reasoning, cluster and external index synchronization support. It supports also SQL JDBC access to Knowledge Graph and GraphQL over SPARQL.

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Graph DBMS
RDF store

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	3.58
Rank	#91	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.49
Rank	#259	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#120	Relational DBMS

Score	18.46
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	1.07
Rank	#188	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#86	Relational DBMS

Score	3.10
Rank	#100	Overall
	#7	Graph DBMS
	#4	RDF stores

Website

www.softwareag.com/en_corporate/platform/adabas-natural.html

alasql.org

www.couchbase.com

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.ontotext.com

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

docs.couchbase.com

apple.github.io/foundationdb

graphdb.ontotext.com/documentation

Social network pages

Developer

Software AG

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Couchbase, Inc.

FoundationDB

Ontotext

Initial release

1971

2014

2011

2013

2000

Current release

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

6.2.28, November 2020

10.4, October 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

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

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Some plugins of GraphDB Workbench are open sourced

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

JavaScript

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C++

Java

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

All OS with a Java VM
Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support; RDF shapes

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

yes, supports real-time synchronization and indexing in SOLR/Elastic search/Lucene and GeoSPARQL geometry data indexes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

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

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

supported in specific SQL layer only

stored SPARQL accessed as SQL using Apache Calcite through JDBC/ODBC

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway
SOAP-based API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway

JavaScript API

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

GeoSPARQL
GraphQL
GraphQL Federation
Java API
JDBC
RDF4J API
RDFS
RIO
Sail API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL 1.1

Supported programming languages

Natural

JavaScript

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

.Net
C#
Clojure
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

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

in SQL-layer only

well-defined plugin interfaces; JavaScript server-side extensibility

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes, with additonal products like Adabas Cluster Services, Adabas Parallel Services, Adabas Vista

none

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

none

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

yes

Multi-source replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency, Eventual consistency (configurable in cluster mode per master or individual client request)

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

in SQL-layer only

yes

Constraint checking

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

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Ephemeral buckets

User concepts

Access control

only with OS-specific tools (e.g. IBM RACF, CA Top Secret)

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

Default Basic authentication through RDF4J client, or via Java when run with cURL, default token-based in the Workbench or via Rest API, optional access through OpenID or Kerberos single sign-on.

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Ontotext GraphDB is a semantic database engine that allows organizations to build...
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Competitive advantages

GraphDB allows you to link text and data in big knowledge graphs. It’s easy to experiment...
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Typical application scenarios

Metadata enrichment and management, linked data publishing, semantic inferencing...
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Key customers

GraphDB provides a platform for building next-generation AI and Knowledge Graph...
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Market metrics

GraphDB is the most utilized semantic triplestore for mission-critical enterprise...
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Licensing and pricing models

GraphDB Free is a non-commercial version and is free to use. GraphDB Enterprise edition...
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