DBMS > Adabas vs. Apache Impala vs. Cassandra vs. Firebird vs. Rockset

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Apache Impala vs. Cassandra vs. Firebird vs. Rockset

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

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

Wide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB

Optimized for write access

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

A scalable, reliable search and analytics service in the cloud, built on RocksDB

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Document store

Vector DBMS

starting with release V5

Relational DBMS
Search engine

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

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	101.89
Rank	#12	Overall
	#1	Wide column stores

Score	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	0.79
Rank	#211	Overall
	#35	Document stores

Website

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

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

docs.rockset.com

Developer

Software AG

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top level project, originally developped by Facebook

Firebird Foundation

Rockset

Initial release

1971

2013

2008

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2019

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

4.1.3, July 2023

5.0.0, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

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.

Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.

Implementation language

C++

Java

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

Linux

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

dynamic typing

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.

ingestion from XML files supported

Secondary indexes

yes

restricted

only equality queries, not always the best performing solution

yes

all fields are automatically indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

SQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)

yes

Read-only SQL queries, including JOINs

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

CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

HTTP REST

Supported programming languages

Natural

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

PSQL

Triggers

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

no "single point of failure"

none

Automatic sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Source-replica replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

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

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

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

Access rights for users and organizations can be defined via Rockset console

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Key customers

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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

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