DBMS > Aerospike vs. PostgreSQL vs. SurrealDB

System Properties Comparison Aerospike vs. PostgreSQL vs. SurrealDB

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Real-time database for speed, scale, and savings. Millisecond latency for mixed read/write workloads. Highly distributed. Proven strong consistency. Distributed ACID Transactions. Flash optimized for low cost of ownership and scalability. Aerospike Database is a shared-nothing, multi-threaded, multi-model data platform designed to operate efficiently on a cluster of server nodes, exploiting modern hardware and network technologies to drive reliably fast performance, at sub-millisecond speeds across petabytes of data.

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

A fully ACID transactional, developer-friendly, multi-model DBMS

Primary database model

Document store
Graph DBMS

leveraging Apache Tinkerpop
Key-value store
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Document store
Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	5.45
Rank	#58	Overall
	#10	Document stores
	#3	Graph DBMS
	#7	Key-value stores
	#2	Spatial DBMS
	#5	Vector DBMS

Score	674.32
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.08
Rank	#176	Overall
	#30	Document stores
	#16	Graph DBMS

Website

aerospike.com

www.postgresql.org

surrealdb.com

Technical documentation

aerospike.com/docs
docs.aerospike.com

www.postgresql.org/docs

surrealdb.com/docs

Developer

Aerospike

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

SurrealDB Ltd

Initial release

2012

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2022

Current release

8.0, February 2025

16.4, August 2024

v1.5.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source, Commercial

Apache and AGPL Licenses; open sourced in June 2014; commercial Enterprise Edition available

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

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.

Aerospike Cloud: aerospike.com/products/aerospike-cloud

PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

Rust

Server operating systems

Linux

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

via Trino Connector or JDBC driver

yes

standard with numerous extensions

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
Proprietary protocol
REST
TinkerPop Gremlin

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

GraphQL
RESTful HTTP API
WebSocket

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C# (.NET)
C++
Erlang
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lua
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Deno
Go
JavaScript (Node.js)
Rust

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

with Lua

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Auto-Sharding

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Aerospike Aggregation Framework is similar to Map/Reduce

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency in cross-datacenter configuration and Immediate Strong Consistency in local cluster configuration. Also supports single cluster deployments with strong consistency across multiple AZs and Regions.

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomic Distributed ACID transactions execution of operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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

User concepts

Access control

LDAP external authentication: aerospike.com/docs/server/operations/configure/security/ldap
Mutual TLS authentication (PKI auth): aerospike.com/docs/server/operations/configure/network/tls
Password authentication: aerospike.com/docs/server/operations/configure/security/access-control

with Enterprise Edition only
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): aerospike.com/docs/graph/security/access-control
Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes, based on authentication and database rules

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Aerospike is an enterprise-class, NoSQL database solution delivering predictable...
» more

Competitive advantages

Optimized for use with SSDs (solid-state hard drives) Scales horizontally and vertically...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Aerospike excels in mission-critical applications that have mixed read/write workloads...
» more

Key customers

Nielsen, Williams-Sonoma, Inmobi, AppNexus, Telco (confidential), Financial Services...
» more

Market metrics

Aerospike's combination of speed, scalability, and reliability delivers 10x performance...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Subscription-based Enterprise Edition and free, open-source Community Edition
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.