DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Datastax Enterprise vs. Firebird vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Datastax Enterprise vs. Firebird vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

JavaScript DBMS library

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is the always-on, scalable data platform built on Apache Cassandra and designed for hybrid Cloud. DSE integrates graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring into a unified platform.

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

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

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Search engine
Vector DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial 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	5.80
Rank	#60	Overall
	#4	Wide column stores

Score	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	1.03
Rank	#190	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#89	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

alasql.org

www.datastax.com/products/datastax-enterprise

www.firebirdsql.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

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

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

docs.datastax.com

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

apple.github.io/foundationdb

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

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

DataStax

Firebird Foundation

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Initial release

2014

2011

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2013

1989

Current release

6.8, April 2020

5.0.0, January 2024

6.2.28, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

commercial

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is 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.

Datastax Astra DB: Astra DB simplifies cloud-native Cassandra application development for your apps, microservices and functions. Deploy in minutes on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and have it managed for you by the experts, with serverless, pay-as-you-go pricing.

SQLServer Flex @ STACKIT offers a managed version of SQL Server with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

JavaScript

Java

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

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

Linux
OS X

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL); Spark SQL

yes

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

Proprietary protocol

CQL (Cassandra Query Language)
TinkerPop Gremlin

with DSE Graph

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

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

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

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

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

PSQL

in SQL-layer only

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

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

none

Sharding

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

configurable replication factor, datacenter aware, advanced replication for edge computing

Source-replica replication

yes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Immediate Consistency
Tunable Consistency

consistency level can be individually decided with each write operation

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per object

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

DataStax Enterprise is scale-out data infrastructure for enterprises that need to...
» more

Competitive advantages

Supporting the following application requirements: Zero downtime - Built on Apache...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Applications that must be massively and linearly scalable with 100% uptime and able...
» more

Key customers

Capital One, Cisco, Comcast, eBay, McDonald's, Microsoft, Safeway, Sony, UBS, and...
» more

Market metrics

Among the Forbes 100 Most Innovative Companies, DataStax is trusted by 5 of the top...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Annual subscription
» 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.