DBMS > Amazon SimpleDB vs. Datomic vs. EXASOL vs. Snowflake vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Amazon SimpleDB vs. Datomic vs. EXASOL vs. Snowflake vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Hosted simple database service by Amazon, with the data stored in the Amazon Cloud.

There is an unrelated product called SimpleDB developed by Edward Sciore

Datomic builds on immutable values, supports point-in-time queries and uses 3rd party systems for durability

High-performance, in-memory, MPP database specifically designed for in-memory analytics.

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

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	1.88
Rank	#133	Overall
	#23	Key-value stores

Score	1.66
Rank	#144	Overall
	#66	Relational DBMS

Score	1.76
Rank	#139	Overall
	#62	Relational DBMS

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	10.06
Rank	#42	Overall
	#26	Relational DBMS

Website

aws.amazon.com/simpledb

Technical documentation

docs.aws.amazon.com/simpledb

docs.datomic.com

www.exasol.com/resources

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Amazon

Cognitect

Exasol

Snowflake Computing Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2007

2012

2000

2014

2005

Current release

1.0.6735, June 2023

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

limited edition free

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.

Implementation language

Java, Clojure

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

All OS with a Java VM

hosted

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

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

All columns are indexed automatically

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

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

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

.Net
JDBC
ODBC
WebSocket

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

.Net
C
C++
Erlang
Java
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Clojure
Java

Java
Lua
Python
R

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transaction Functions

user defined functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

By using transaction functions

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding must be implemented in the application

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Sharding

yes

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

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

yes

Hadoop integration

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be specified for read operations

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Concurrent data updates can be detected by the application

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

using external storage systems (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Couchbase and others)

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

recommended only for testing and development

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users and roles can be defined via the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users, groups and roles 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

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

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Licensing and pricing models

Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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