DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Couchbase vs. MySQL vs. TimescaleDB vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Couchbase vs. MySQL vs. TimescaleDB vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

Widely used open source RDBMS

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Time Series DBMS

Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	0.46
Rank	#260	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#121	Relational DBMS

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	1083.74
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	4.64
Rank	#71	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Score	1.73
Rank	#143	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

docs.couchbase.com

dev.mysql.com/doc

docs.timescale.com

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Couchbase, Inc.

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Timescale

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2014

2011

1995

2017

2019

Current release

Server: 7.2, June 2023; Mobile: 3.1, March 2022; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), June 2023

8.4.0, April 2024

2.15.0, May 2024

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

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.

Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

Implementation language

JavaScript

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C and C++

Server operating systems

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

CLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

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

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

yes

proprietary syntax

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Automatic Sharding

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

yes

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

selectable on a per-operation basis

Immediate Consistency

Eventual 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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

User concepts

Access control

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
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Licensing and pricing models

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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