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DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameAlaSQL  Xexclude from comparisonFirebase Realtime Database  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonRethinkDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionJavaScript DBMS libraryCloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.Fully managed big data interactive analytics platformWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLDBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime.
Primary database modelDocument store
Relational DBMS
Document storeRelational DBMS infocolumn orientedRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Document store
Secondary database modelsDocument store infoIf a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-types/­dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store infothis is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine infosupport for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorer/­time-series-analysis
Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score0.51
Rank#256  Overall
#40  Document stores
#118  Relational DBMS
Score13.64
Rank#39  Overall
#6  Document stores
Score3.80
Rank#81  Overall
#43  Relational DBMS
Score636.25
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score2.66
Rank#107  Overall
#20  Document stores
Websitealasql.orgfirebase.google.com/­products/­realtime-databaseazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorerwww.postgresql.orgrethinkdb.com
Technical documentationgithub.com/­AlaSQL/­alasqlfirebase.google.com/­docs/­databasedocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorerwww.postgresql.org/­docsrethinkdb.com/­docs
DeveloperAndrey Gershun & Mathias R. WulffGoogle infoacquired by Google 2014MicrosoftPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerThe Linux Foundation infosince July 2017
Initial release2014201220191989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2009
Current releasecloud service with continuous releases16.3, May 20242.4.1, August 2020
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoMIT-LicensecommercialcommercialOpen Source infoBSDOpen Source infoApache Version 2
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenoyesyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJavaScriptCC++
Server operating systemsserver-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)hostedhostedFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeschema-freeFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)yesschema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or datenoyesyes infobool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-typesyesyes infostring, binary, float, bool, date, geometry
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.nonoyesyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.no
Secondary indexesnoyesall fields are automatically indexedyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLClose to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.noKusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subsetyes infostandard with numerous extensionsno
APIs and other access methodsJavaScript APIAndroid
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API
Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesJavaScriptJava
JavaScript
Objective-C
.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
C infocommunity-supported driver
C# infocommunity-supported driver
C++ infocommunity-supported driver
Clojure infocommunity-supported driver
Dart infocommunity-supported driver
Erlang infocommunity-supported driver
Go infocommunity-supported driver
Haskell infocommunity-supported driver
Java infoofficial driver
JavaScript (Node.js) infoofficial driver
Lisp infocommunity-supported driver
Lua infocommunity-supported driver
Objective-C infocommunity-supported driver
Perl infocommunity-supported driver
PHP infocommunity-supported driver
Python infoofficial driver
Ruby infoofficial driver
Scala infocommunity-supported driver
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnolimited functionality with using 'rules'Yes, possible languages: KQL, Python, Ruser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.
TriggersyesCallbacks are triggered when data changesyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicyyesClient-side triggers through changefeeds
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesnoneSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud servicepartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashSharding inforange based
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesnoneyes infoImplicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.Source-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsSource-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonoSpark connector (open source): github.com/­Azure/­azure-kusto-sparknoyes
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemnoneEventual Consistency infoif the client is offline
Immediate Consistency infoif the client is online
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesnonoyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datayes infoonly for local storage and DOM-storageyesnoACIDAtomic single-document operations
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes infoMVCC based
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyes infoby using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorageyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesnonono
User concepts infoAccess controlnoyes, based on authentication and database rulesAzure Active Directory Authenticationfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardyes infousers and table-level permissions

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AlaSQLFirebase Realtime DatabaseMicrosoft Azure Data ExplorerPostgreSQLRethinkDB
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