DBMS > Adabas vs. Firebird vs. Lovefield vs. MySQL vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Firebird vs. Lovefield vs. MySQL vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

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

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Widely used open source RDBMS

RDBMS database and synchronization technologies for server, desktop, remote office, and mobile environments

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.79
Rank	#102	Overall
	#2	Multivalue DBMS

Score	20.50
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	0.33
Rank	#286	Overall
	#131	Relational DBMS

Score	1061.34
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	3.95
Rank	#80	Overall
	#42	Relational DBMS

Website

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

www.firebirdsql.org

google.github.io/lovefield

www.mysql.com

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sql-anywhere.html

Technical documentation

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

dev.mysql.com/doc

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

Developer

Software AG

Firebird Foundation

Google

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

SAP

formerly Sybase

Initial release

1971

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2014

1995

1992

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

2.1.12, February 2017

8.4.0, April 2024

17, July 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C and C++

JavaScript

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

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

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

yes

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

yes

with proprietary extensions

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

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Natural

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

JavaScript

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

PSQL

yes

proprietary syntax

yes, in C/C++, Java, .Net or Perl

Triggers

yes

Using read-only observers

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

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Source-replica replication

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

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

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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