DBMS > AlaSQL vs. FoundationDB vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. FoundationDB vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Snowflake

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

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

Google's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Key-value store
Wide column store

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

Score	3.26
Rank	#92	Overall
	#13	Key-value stores
	#8	Wide column stores

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Website

alasql.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

cloud.google.com/bigtable

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

apple.github.io/foundationdb

cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

FoundationDB

Google

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2014

2013

2015

2014

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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.

Implementation language

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

SQL

Support of SQL

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

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

yes

Internal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zones

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Linearizable consistency

Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)

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

ACID

Atomic single-row operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

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