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DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Firebird vs. Informix vs. Neo4j vs. OrientDB

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Firebird vs. Informix vs. Neo4j vs. OrientDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameApache Impala  Xexclude from comparisonFirebird  Xexclude from comparisonInformix  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonOrientDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionAnalytic DBMS for HadoopFirebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBaseA secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things dataScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsMulti-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDBGraph DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Secondary database modelsDocument storeDocument store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS infowith Informix TimeSeries Extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score12.45
Rank#40  Overall
#24  Relational DBMS
Score20.50
Rank#30  Overall
#18  Relational DBMS
Score17.12
Rank#34  Overall
#21  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score3.25
Rank#89  Overall
#16  Document stores
#6  Graph DBMS
#13  Key-value stores
Websiteimpala.apache.orgwww.firebirdsql.orgwww.ibm.com/­products/­informixneo4j.comorientdb.org
Technical documentationimpala.apache.org/­impala-docs.htmlwww.firebirdsql.org/­en/­reference-manualsinformix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/­support/­knowledgecenter/­SSGU8G/­welcomeIfxServers.html
neo4j.com/­docswww.orientdb.com/­docs/­last/­index.html
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top-level project, originally developed by ClouderaFirebird FoundationIBM, HCL Technologies infoEffective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.Neo4j, Inc.OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAP
Initial release20132000 infoAs fork of Borland's InterBase198420072010
Current release4.1.0, June 20225.0.0, January 202414.10.FC5, November 20205.20, May 20243.2.29, March 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache Version 2Open Source infoInitial Developer's Public Licensecommercial infofree developer edition availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoApache version 2
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC++C and C++C, C++ and JavaJava, ScalaJava
Server operating systemsLinuxAIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less infoFirebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows
AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)
Data schemeyesyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalschema-free infoSchema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypesyesyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.nono
Secondary indexesyesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like DML and DDL statementsyesyesnoSQL-like query language, no joins
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
ODBC
ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC infoJaybird
ODBC
OLE DB
JDBC
JSON API infoMongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
Supported programming languagesAll languages supporting JDBC/ODBCC
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C#
C++
Clojure
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyes infouser defined functions and integration of map-reducePSQLyesyes infoUser defined Procedures and FunctionsJava, Javascript
Triggersnoyesyesyes infovia event handlerHooks
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingnoneShardingyes using Neo4j FabricSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factorSource-replica replicationMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlyMulti-source replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infoquery execution via MapReducenononono infocould be achieved with distributed queries
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes inforelationship in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanoACIDACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyes infoFeatures a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writersyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles infobased on Apache Sentry and KerberosUsers with fine-grained authorization conceptUsers with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controlsUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurable
More information provided by the system vendor
Apache ImpalaFirebirdInformixNeo4jOrientDB
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsNeo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsGPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
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