DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Firebird vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Informix

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Firebird vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Informix

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

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

Google's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.

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

Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

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

Secondary database models

Document store

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	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	3.26
Rank	#92	Overall
	#13	Key-value stores
	#8	Wide column stores

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Website

impala.apache.org

www.firebirdsql.org

cloud.google.com/bigtable

www.ibm.com/products/informix

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs

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

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Firebird Foundation

Google

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

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2015

1984

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

5.0.0, January 2024

14.10.FC5, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

commercial

free developer edition available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C++

C and C++

C, C++ and Java

Server operating systems

Linux

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)

JDBC
JSON API

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

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

PSQL

yes

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

Internal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zones

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

Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic single-row operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

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

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

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

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