DBMS > Adabas vs. AlaSQL vs. FileMaker vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Postgres-XL

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. AlaSQL vs. FileMaker vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Postgres-XL

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

used typically together with the Natural programming platform

JavaScript DBMS library

FileMaker is a cross-platform RDBMS that includes a GUI frontend.

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.46
Rank	#260	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#121	Relational DBMS

Score	48.20
Rank	#20	Overall
	#14	Relational DBMS

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	0.49
Rank	#256	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Website

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

alasql.org

www.claris.com/filemaker

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

www.postgres-xl.org

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

www.claris.com/resources/documentation

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

Developer

Software AG

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Claris

a subsidiary of Apple

Microsoft

Initial release

1971

2014

1983

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

Current release

19.4.1, November 2021

10 R1, October 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MIT-License

commercial

Open Source

Mozilla public license

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.

Implementation language

JavaScript

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

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

iOS

client part only
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Linux
macOS

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

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

A http query request can return the data in XML format

yes

XML type, but no XML query functionality

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

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.

yes

via plugins

SQL-like query language

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

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

Filemaker WebDirect
JDBC
ODBC

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

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

Supported programming languages

Natural

JavaScript

PHP

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

yes

JavaScript

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

none

Source-replica replication, warm standby

since Version 14

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

MVCC

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

User concepts

Access control

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

simple rights management via user accounts and connection to external directory services

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

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.