DBMS > Apache Impala vs. CouchDB vs. Firebird vs. RethinkDB

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. CouchDB vs. Firebird vs. RethinkDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

DBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime.

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Document store

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	10.63
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	7.46
Rank	#51	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	19.46
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	2.58
Rank	#105	Overall
	#20	Document stores

Website

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

rethinkdb.com/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

Firebird Foundation

The Linux Foundation

since July 2017

Initial release

2013

2005

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2009

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

3.3.3, December 2023

5.0.1, August 2024

2.4.1, August 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

Open Source

Apache Version 2

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++

Erlang

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, binary, float, bool, date, geometry

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

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

community-supported driver
C#

community-supported driver
C++

community-supported driver
Clojure

community-supported driver
Dart

community-supported driver
Erlang

community-supported driver
Go

community-supported driver
Haskell

community-supported driver
Java

official driver
JavaScript (Node.js)

official driver
Lisp

community-supported driver
Lua

community-supported driver
Objective-C

community-supported driver
Perl

community-supported driver
PHP

community-supported driver
Python

official driver
Ruby

official driver
Scala

community-supported driver

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

View functions in JavaScript

PSQL

Triggers

yes

Client-side triggers through changefeeds

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

none

Sharding

range based

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

ACID

Atomic single-document operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

yes

MVCC based

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.

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

yes

users and table-level permissions

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More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

Couchbase climbs up the DB-Engines Ranking, increasing its popularity by 10% every month
2 June 2014, Matthias Gelbmann

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Recent citations in the news

Apache Impala 4 Supports Operator Multi-Threading
29 July 2021, iProgrammer

Apache Impala becomes Top-Level Project
28 November 2017, SDTimes.com

Cloudera Bringing Impala to AWS Cloud
28 November 2017, Datanami

Hudi: Uber Engineering’s Incremental Processing Framework on Apache Hadoop
12 March 2017, Uber

Updates & Upserts in Hadoop Ecosystem with Apache Kudu
27 October 2017, KDnuggets

provided by Google News

How to install the CouchDB NoSQL database on Debian Server 11
16 June 2022, TechRepublic

IBM Cloudant pulls plan to fund new foundational layer for CouchDB
15 March 2022, The Register

Database Ransom Attacks Hit CouchDB and Hadoop Servers
18 January 2017, BleepingComputer

Hadoop, CouchDB Next Targets in Wave of Database Attacks
20 January 2017, Threatpost

CouchDB 3.0 ends admin party era
27 February 2020, DevClass

provided by Google News

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24 May 2024, Music Business Worldwide

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1 May 2024, TechTarget

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23 October 2023, The Hacker News

Firebird – Analyst, Digital Marketing (US)
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25 April 2024, Arena Insider

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An introduction to building realtime apps with RethinkDB
9 July 2022, devm.io

Stripe acquires team behind NoSQL database startup RethinkDB
5 October 2016, VentureBeat

How to Use RethinkDB with Node.js Applications
16 December 2015, SitePoint

How to deploy RethinkDB using Docker
14 February 2018, Packt Hub

Installing and Using RethinkDB on Ubuntu
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