DBMS > Adabas vs. Firebird vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. Realm vs. Redis

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Firebird vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. Realm vs. Redis

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

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

A containerised multi-model DBMS, interoperability and analytics data platform with wide capabilities for vertical and horizontal scalability

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

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Relational DBMS

Document store
Key-value store
Object oriented DBMS
Relational DBMS

Document store

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	4.05
Rank	#83	Overall
	#14	Document stores
	#10	Key-value stores
	#1	Object oriented DBMS
	#45	Relational DBMS

Score	7.60
Rank	#52	Overall
	#9	Document stores

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Website

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

www.firebirdsql.org

www.intersystems.com/products/intersystems-iris

realm.io

redis.com
redis.io

Technical documentation

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls

realm.io/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

Developer

Software AG

Firebird Foundation

InterSystems

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Initial release

1971

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2018

2014

2009

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

2023.3, June 2023

7.2.4, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

commercial

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

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.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C and C++

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

AIX
Linux
macOS
Ubuntu
Windows

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Data scheme

yes

depending on used data model

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

yes

with RediSQL module

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API

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

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Supported programming languages

Natural

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

PSQL

yes

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

Change Listeners

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

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

none

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Source-replica replication

none

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

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

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

In-Memory realm

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

yes

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

InterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform which includes a multi-model...
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