DBMS > AlaSQL vs. CouchDB vs. HarperDB vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. CouchDB vs. HarperDB vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

HarperDB takes the "stack" out of "tech stack" by combining an ultra-fast document-style data store, in-memory cache, real-time message broker, and your application components into a single distributed technology.

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.

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	0.42
Rank	#264	Overall
	#42	Document stores
	#122	Relational DBMS

Score	7.46
Rank	#51	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	0.55
Rank	#243	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	83.44
Rank	#15	Overall
	#10	Relational DBMS

Score	72.95
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Website

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

docs.harperdb.io/docs

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

HarperDB

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

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Microsoft

Initial release

2014

2005

2017

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

2010

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

3.1, August 2021

11.5.2, August 2024

V12

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free community edition available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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

JavaScript

Erlang

Node.js

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

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

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

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

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

SQL-like data manipulation statements

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

.Net
C
C#
C++
ColdFusion
D
Dart
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
MatLab
Objective C
Perl
PHP
PowerShell
Prolog
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift

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

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

Transact SQL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

A table resides as a whole on one (or more) nodes in a cluster

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, with always 3 replicas available

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Eventual Consistency

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

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

atomic operations within a single document possible

Atomic execution of specific operations

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

yes, using LMDB

yes

not for in-memory storage engine

yes

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

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
» more

Competitive advantages

MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
» more

Typical application scenarios

Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
» more

Key customers

Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
» more

Market metrics

MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
» 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.