DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Couchbase vs. Faircom DB vs. GraphDB vs. Informix

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Couchbase vs. Faircom DB vs. GraphDB vs. Informix

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

Native high-speed multi-model DBMS for relational and key-value store data simultaneously accessible through SQL and NoSQL APIs.

Enterprise-ready RDF and graph database with efficient reasoning, cluster and external index synchronization support. It supports also SQL JDBC access to Knowledge Graph and GraphQL over SPARQL.

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

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS
RDF store

Relational DBMS

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

Secondary database models

Document store

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

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

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	0.20
Rank	#318	Overall
	#48	Key-value stores
	#141	Relational DBMS

Score	3.32
Rank	#91	Overall
	#6	Graph DBMS
	#4	RDF stores

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Website

impala.apache.org

www.couchbase.com

www.faircom.com/products/faircom-db

www.ontotext.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

docs.couchbase.com

docs.faircom.com/docs/en/UUID-7446ae34-a1a7-c843-c894-d5322e395184.html

graphdb.ontotext.com/documentation

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

Social network pages

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Couchbase, Inc.

FairCom Corporation

Ontotext

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.

Initial release

2013

2011

1979

2000

1984

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

Server: 7.2, June 2023; Mobile: 3.1, March 2022; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), June 2023

V12, November 2020

10.4, October 2023

14.10.FC5, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

commercial

Restricted, free version available

commercial

Some plugins of GraphDB Workbench are open sourced

commercial

free developer edition 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++, Go and Erlang

ANSI C, C++

Java

C, C++ and Java

Server operating systems

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
QNX
SCO
Solaris
VxWorks
Windows

easily portable to other OSs

All OS with a Java VM
Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

schema free, schema optional, schema required, partial schema,

schema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support; RDF shapes

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, ANSI SQL Types, JSON, typed binary structures

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

yes, supports real-time synchronization and indexing in SOLR/Elastic search/Lucene and GeoSPARQL geometry data indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

yes, ANSI SQL with proprietary extensions

stored SPARQL accessed as SQL using Apache Calcite through JDBC/ODBC

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

CLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data

ADO.NET
Direct SQL
JDBC
JPA
ODBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
RESTful MQTT/JSON API
RPC

GeoSPARQL
GraphQL
GraphQL Federation
Java API
JDBC
RDF4J API
RDFS
RIO
Sail API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL 1.1

JDBC
JSON API

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

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js and browser)
PHP
Python
Visual Basic

.Net
C#
Clojure
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

yes

.Net, JavaScript, C/C++

well-defined plugin interfaces; JavaScript server-side extensibility

yes

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Automatic Sharding

File partitioning, horizontal partitioning, sharding

Customizable business rules for table partitioning

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

yes, configurable to be parallel or serial, synchronous or asynchronous, uni-directional or bi-directional, ACID-consistent or eventually consistent (with custom conflict resolution).

Multi-source replication

Multi-source 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

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Tunable consistency per server, database, table, and transaction

Immediate Consistency, Eventual consistency (configurable in cluster mode per master or individual client request)

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Constraint checking

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

tunable from ACID to Eventually Consistent

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Yes, tunable from durable to delayed durability to in-memory

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.

Fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard with additional protections for files

Default Basic authentication through RDF4J client, or via Java when run with cURL, default token-based in the Workbench or via Rest API, optional access through OpenID or Kerberos single sign-on.

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Ontotext GraphDB is a semantic database engine that allows organizations to build...
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Competitive advantages

GraphDB allows you to link text and data in big knowledge graphs. It’s easy to experiment...
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Typical application scenarios

Metadata enrichment and management, linked data publishing, semantic inferencing...
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Key customers

GraphDB provides a platform for building next-generation AI and Knowledge Graph...
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Market metrics

GraphDB is the most utilized semantic triplestore for mission-critical enterprise...
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Licensing and pricing models

GraphDB Free is a non-commercial version and is free to use. GraphDB Enterprise edition...
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News

Understanding the Graph Center of Excellence
17 May 2024

Migrating From LPG to RDF Graph Model
8 May 2024

Case study: Policy Enforcement Automation With Semantics
2 May 2024

Okay, RAG… We Have a Problem
26 April 2024

Scaling Understanding with the Help of Feedback Loops, Knowledge Graphs and NLP
19 April 2024

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.