DBMS > Apache Drill vs. CockroachDB vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

System Properties Comparison Apache Drill vs. CockroachDB vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

Schema-free SQL Query Engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and Cloud Storage

CockroachDB is a distributed database architected for modern cloud applications. It is wire compatible with PostgreSQL and backed by a Key-Value Store, which is either RocksDB or a purpose-built derivative, called Pebble.

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

Microsoft Access combines a backend RDBMS (JET / ACE Engine) with a GUI frontend for data manipulation and queries.

The Access frontend is often used for accessing other datasources (DBMS, Excel, etc.)

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	1.90
Rank	#126	Overall
	#23	Document stores
	#60	Relational DBMS

Score	4.74
Rank	#67	Overall
	#36	Relational DBMS

Score	0.97
Rank	#191	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#87	Relational DBMS

Score	93.76
Rank	#12	Overall
	#8	Relational DBMS

Score	24.97
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Website

drill.apache.org

www.cockroachlabs.com

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

Technical documentation

drill.apache.org/docs

www.cockroachlabs.com/docs

apple.github.io/foundationdb

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Cockroach Labs

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Initial release

2012

2015

2013

1992

2014

Current release

1.20.3, January 2023

24.1.0, May 2024

6.2.28, November 2020

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0, commercial license available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

yes

JSON types

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL SELECT statement is SQL:2003 compliant

yes, wire compatible with PostgreSQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

but not compliant to any SQL standard

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

JDBC

ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

Supported programming languages

C++

C#
C++
Clojure
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

in SQL-layer only

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

JavaScript

Triggers

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

JavaScript

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning (by key range)

all tables are translated to an ordered KV store and then broken down into 64MB ranges, which are then used as replicas in RAFT

Sharding

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication using RAFT

yes

none

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Immediate Consistency

Linearizable consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session 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

but no files for transaction logging

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

but no files for transaction logging

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

Depending on the underlying data source

User concepts

Access control

Depending on the underlying data source

Role-based access control

a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

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