DBMS > Adabas vs. Firebird vs. MariaDB vs. searchxml vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Firebird vs. MariaDB vs. searchxml vs. VoltDB

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

MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL.

DBMS for structured and unstructured content wrapped with an application server

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Relational DBMS

Native XML DBMS
Search engine

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial 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	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	0.00
Rank	#383	Overall
	#7	Native XML DBMS
	#25	Search engines

Score	1.44
Rank	#158	Overall
	#73	Relational DBMS

Website

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

www.firebirdsql.org

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

www.searchxml.net/category/products

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

www.searchxml.net/support/handouts

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Software AG

Firebird Foundation

MariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server)

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

informationpartners gmbh

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

1971

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

2015

2010

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

11.3.2, February 2024

1.0

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

commercial

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

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.

STACKIT MariaDB offers MariaDB in a fully managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

C and C++

C++

Java, 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

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

Windows

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

schema-free

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

with proprietary extensions

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

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

RESTful HTTP API
WebDAV
XQuery
XSLT

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

Natural

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

C++

most other programming languages supported via APIs

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

PSQL

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

yes

on the application server

Java

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

none

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

sychronisation to multiple collections

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

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

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

multiple readers, single writer

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

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

not for in-memory storage engine

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

with MEMORY storage engine

User concepts

Access control

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Domain, group and role-based access control at the document level and for application services

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
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Key customers

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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

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