DBMS > Adabas vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Oracle Berkeley DB

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Oracle Berkeley DB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

OLTP - DBMS for mainframes and Linux/Unix/Windows environments

used typically together with the Natural programming platform

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

Microsoft Access combines a backend RDBMS (JET / ACE Engine) with a GUI frontend for data manipulation and queries.

The Access frontend is often used for accessing other datasources (DBMS, Excel, etc.)

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Widely used in-process key-value store

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

supports sorted and unsorted key sets
Native XML DBMS

in the Oracle Berkeley DB XML version

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	3.58
Rank	#91	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	1.07
Rank	#188	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#86	Relational DBMS

Score	105.40
Rank	#11	Overall
	#8	Relational DBMS

Score	829.80
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	2.52
Rank	#114	Overall
	#20	Key-value stores
	#3	Native XML DBMS

Website

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

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/berkeleydb.html

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

docs.oracle.com/cd/E17076_05/html/index.html

Developer

Software AG

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Oracle

originally developed by Sleepycat, which was acquired by Oracle

Initial release

1971

2013

1992

1989

1994

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

18.1.40, May 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

commercial license available

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.

Implementation language

C++

C, Java, C++ (depending on the Berkeley DB edition)

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

Linux
OS X
Windows

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

Linux
Windows

AIX
Android
FreeBSD
iOS
Linux
OS X
Solaris
VxWorks
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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

only with the Berkeley DB XML edition

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

but not compliant to any SQL standard

yes

SQL interfaced based on SQLite is available

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
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

Supported programming languages

Natural

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net

Figaro is a .Net framework assembly that extends Berkeley DB XML into an embeddable database engine for .NET
others

Third-party libraries to manipulate Berkeley DB files are available for many languages
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)

3rd party binding
Perl
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

in SQL-layer only

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

Triggers

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

yes

only for the SQL API

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

Sharding

none

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

yes

none

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

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

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

but no files for transaction logging

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

but no files for transaction logging

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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