DBMS > Adabas vs. Couchbase vs. IBM Cloudant vs. Informix vs. Realm

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Couchbase vs. IBM Cloudant vs. Informix vs. Realm

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

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

Database as a Service offering based on Apache CouchDB

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

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

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

Document 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

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	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	2.68
Rank	#106	Overall
	#20	Document stores

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	7.60
Rank	#52	Overall
	#9	Document stores

Website

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

www.couchbase.com

www.ibm.com/products/cloudant

www.ibm.com/products/informix

realm.io

Technical documentation

docs.couchbase.com

cloud.ibm.com/docs/Cloudant

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

realm.io/docs

Developer

Software AG

Couchbase, Inc.

IBM, Apache Software Foundation

IBM acquired Cloudant in February 2014

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.

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Initial release

1971

2011

2010

1984

2014

Current release

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

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

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

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

C, C++, Go and Erlang

Erlang

C, C++ and Java

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
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

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

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

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

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

JDBC
JSON API

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

Supported programming languages

Natural

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C#
Java
JavaScript
Objective-C
PHP
Ruby

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

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

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

View functions (Map-Reduce) in JavaScript

yes

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Change Listeners

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

none

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

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

atomic operations within a document possible

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Optimistic locking

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

In-Memory realm

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.

Access rights for users can be defined per database

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

yes

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