DBMS > Altibase vs. FoundationDB vs. Informix vs. Kdb vs. Oracle

System Properties Comparison Altibase vs. FoundationDB vs. Informix vs. Kdb vs. Oracle

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

An enterprise grade, high-performance RDBMS

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

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

High performance Time Series DBMS

Widely used RDBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
RDF store

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Spatial DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Vector DBMS

since Oracle 23

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

Score	1.07
Rank	#186	Overall
	#87	Relational DBMS

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

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	7.55
Rank	#53	Overall
	#3	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	1236.29
Rank	#1	Overall
	#1	Relational DBMS

Website

altibase.com

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.ibm.com/products/informix

kx.com

www.oracle.com/database

Technical documentation

github.com/ALTIBASE/Documents/tree/master/Manuals

apple.github.io/foundationdb

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

code.kx.com

docs.oracle.com/en/database

Developer

Altibase

FoundationDB

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Oracle

Initial release

1999

2013

1984

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

1980

Current release

v7.3, 2023, August 2023

6.2.28, November 2020

14.10.FC5, November 2020

3.6, May 2018

23c, September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open source edition discontinued with March 2023

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

free 32-bit version

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.

Implementation language

C++

C, C++ and Java

C and C++

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

Schemaless in JSON and XML columns

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

ANSI SQL-92

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

with proprietary extensions

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

C
C++
Java

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Cobol
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Fortran
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Objective C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

stored procedures and stored functions

in SQL-layer only

yes

user defined functions

PL/SQL

also stored procedures in Java possible

Triggers

yes

with views

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

can be realized in PL/SQL

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

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

ACID

isolation level can be parameterized

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Version 12c introduced the new option 'Oracle Database In-Memory'

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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