DBMS > Apache IoTDB vs. HarperDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Apache IoTDB vs. HarperDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

An IoT native database with high performance for data management and analysis, deployable on the edge and the cloud and integrated with Hadoop, Spark and Flink

Ultra-low latency distributed database with an intuitive REST API supporting NoSQL and SQL (including joins). Deployment of functions and databases simultaneously with a consolidated node-level architecture.

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Time Series DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

Relational DBMS

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

Score	1.31
Rank	#164	Overall
	#14	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.60
Rank	#244	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	4.46
Rank	#71	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

iotdb.apache.org/UserGuide/Master/QuickStart/QuickStart.html

docs.harperdb.io/docs

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

HarperDB

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Timescale

Initial release

2018

2017

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2017

Current release

1.1.0, April 2023

3.1, August 2021

16.3, May 2024

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

commercial

free community edition available

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

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Implementation language

Java

Node.js

Server operating systems

All OS with a Java VM (>= 1.8)

Linux
OS X

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

dynamic schema

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

SQL-like data manipulation statements

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
Native API

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

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

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Go
Java
Python
Scala

.Net
C
C#
C++
ColdFusion
D
Dart
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
MatLab
Objective C
Perl
PHP
PowerShell
Prolog
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning (by time range) + vertical partitioning (by deviceId)

A table resides as a whole on one (or more) nodes in a cluster

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication methods; using Raft/IoTConsensus algorithm to ensure strong/eventual data consistency among multiple replicas

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Integration with Hadoop and Spark

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Strong Consistency with Raft

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomic execution of specific operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, using LMDB

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

yes

Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources

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PASS Data Community Summit
Seattle, Washington, 4-8 November 2024

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