DBMS > Alibaba Cloud PolarDB vs. MariaDB vs. Snowflake vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Alibaba Cloud PolarDB vs. MariaDB vs. Snowflake vs. Vertica

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A cloud-native relational database compatible with MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle. Designed for business critical applications.

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.

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

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	0.59
Rank	#241	Overall
	#110	Relational DBMS

Score	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

www.alibabacloud.com/product/polardb

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

www.snowflake.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/polardb/product-overview

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Alibaba

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

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Snowflake Computing Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

2014

2005

Current release

11.3.2, February 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

hosted

Linux

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

yes

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

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

Java
Python

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

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

user defined functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

yes

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

PolarDB, previously ApsaraDB for PolarDB, is a cloud-native relational database designed...
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MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

Webinar: Top Scientists Live: Tech Secrets to Double 11's Success Revealed. White...
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MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

Creating a Robust Cloud-Based Database for Fintech, E-Commerce and Gaming. Learn...
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Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
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Licensing and pricing models

Specification and pricing. You can use either of the following billing methods to...
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MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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