DBMS > Apache Impala vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. NebulaGraph vs. Postgres-XL

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. NebulaGraph vs. Postgres-XL

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

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

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

A distributed, linear scalable, high perfomant Graph DBMS

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	1.03
Rank	#190	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#89	Relational DBMS

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	2.14
Rank	#120	Overall
	#10	Graph DBMS

Score	0.49
Rank	#256	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Website

impala.apache.org

github.com/apple/foundationdb

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

github.com/vesoft-inc/nebula
www.nebula-graph.io

www.postgres-xl.org

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

apple.github.io/foundationdb

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.nebula-graph.io

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Vesoft Inc.

Initial release

2013

2014

2019

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

6.2.28, November 2020

10 R1, October 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0 + Common Clause 1.0

Open Source

Mozilla public license

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++

Server operating systems

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Linux

Linux
macOS

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

Strong typed schema

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

yes

JSON types

yes

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.

yes

XML type, but no XML query functionality

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

Nebula Graph internally uses the Key-Value store RocksDB for persistency. The vertices, edges, and their properties are stored as Key while their values are stored as Value. The primary indexes are per Key and secondary indexes are per Value.

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-like query language

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

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

Browser interface
console (shell)
Cypher Query Language
GO Object Graph Mapper
Java Object Graph Mapper
NGBatis

ORM framework for NebulaGraph and Spring-Boot
Proprietary native API
Python Object Graph Mapper
Query language nGQL

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

.Net
C++
Go
Java
PHP
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

in SQL-layer only

JavaScript

user defined functions

Triggers

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Linearizable consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

MVCC

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

using RocksDB

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

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

Role-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

NebulaGraph is a truly distributed, linearly scalable, lightning-fast graph database,...
» more

Competitive advantages

NebulaGraph boasts the world's only graph database solution that is able to host...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Social networking Fraud detection Knowledge graph Data warehouse management Anti...
» more

Key customers

Companies from a variety of industries have implemented NebulaGraph Database in production,...
» more

Market metrics

At our very early stage, NebulaGraph has already received over 10,000 stars on GitHub...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

NebulaGraph is open source and free to use under Apache 2.0 license.
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.