DBMS > Adabas vs. Altibase vs. Couchbase vs. Informix

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Altibase vs. Couchbase vs. Informix

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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

An enterprise grade, high-performance RDBMS

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

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Primary database model

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

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

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

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

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	1.07
Rank	#186	Overall
	#87	Relational DBMS

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Website

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

altibase.com

www.couchbase.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

Technical documentation

github.com/ALTIBASE/Documents/tree/master/Manuals

docs.couchbase.com

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

Developer

Software AG

Altibase

Couchbase, Inc.

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Initial release

1971

1999

2011

1984

Current release

v7.3, 2023, August 2023

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

14.10.FC5, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open source edition discontinued with March 2023

Open Source

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

commercial

free developer edition available

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

C++

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C, C++ and Java

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

AIX
HP-UX
Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

ANSI SQL-92

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

yes

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API

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

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol

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

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

Supported programming languages

Natural

C
C++
Java

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

stored procedures and stored functions

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

yes

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

Sharding

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

yes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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.

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

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