DBMS > Citus vs. ClickHouse vs. Postgres-XL vs. PostgreSQL vs. Virtuoso

System Properties Comparison Citus vs. ClickHouse vs. Postgres-XL vs. PostgreSQL vs. Virtuoso

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Scalable hybrid operational and analytics RDBMS for big data use cases based on PostgreSQL

A high-performance, column-oriented SQL DBMS for online analytical processing (OLAP) that uses all available system resources to their full potential to process each analytical query as fast as possible. It is available as both an open-source software and a cloud offering.

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

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Virtuoso is a multi-model hybrid-RDBMS that supports management of data represented as relational tables and/or property graphs

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Document store
Graph DBMS
Native XML DBMS
Relational DBMS
RDF store
Search engine

Secondary database models

Document store

Time Series DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.15
Rank	#123	Overall
	#60	Relational DBMS

Score	16.20
Rank	#37	Overall
	#23	Relational DBMS

Score	0.52
Rank	#256	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	645.05
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	4.20
Rank	#83	Overall
	#14	Document stores
	#4	Graph DBMS
	#2	Native XML DBMS
	#45	Relational DBMS
	#2	RDF stores
	#9	Search engines

Website

virtuoso.openlinksw.com

Technical documentation

docs.citusdata.com

clickhouse.com/docs

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso

Developer

Clickhouse Inc.

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

OpenLink Software

Initial release

2010

2016

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

1998

Current release

8.1, December 2018

v24.3.2.23-lts, April 2024

10 R1, October 2018

16.2, February 2024

7.2.11, September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

AGPL, commercial license also available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Mozilla public license

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

GPLv2, extended commercial license 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.

DoubleCloud: Fully managed ClickHouse alongside best-in-class managed open-source services to build analytics at scale.
ClickHouse Cloud: Get the performance you love from open source ClickHouse in a serverless offering that takes care of the details so you can spend more time getting insight out of the fastest database on earth.
Aiven for Clickhouse: Managed cloud data warehousing with high-speed analytics.

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.

Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

FreeBSD
Linux
macOS

Linux
macOS

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

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

SQL - Standard relational schema
RDF - Quad (S, P, O, G) or Triple (S, P, O)
XML - DTD, XML Schema
DAV - freeform filesystem objects, plus User Defined Types a/k/a Dynamic Extension Type

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

specific XML type available, but no XML query functionality

yes

XML type, but no XML query functionality

yes

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

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard, with numerous extensions

Close to ANSI SQL (SQL/JSON + extensions)

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

SQL-92, SQL-200x, SQL-3, SQLX

APIs and other access methods

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

gRPC
HTTP REST
JDBC
MySQL wire protocol
ODBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol
Proprietary protocol

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

ADO.NET
GeoSPARQL
HTTP API
JDBC
Jena RDF API
ODBC
OLE DB
RDF4J API
RESTful HTTP API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SOAP webservices
SPARQL 1.1
WebDAV
XPath
XQuery
XSLT

Supported programming languages

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

3rd party library
C++
Elixir

3rd party library
Go

3rd party library
Java

3rd party library
JavaScript (Node.js)

3rd party library
Kotlin

3rd party library
Nim

3rd party library
Perl

3rd party library
PHP

3rd party library
Python

3rd party library
R

3rd party library
Ruby

3rd party library
Rust
Scala

3rd party library

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

yes

user defined functions

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

yes

Virtuoso PL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

key based and custom

horizontal partitioning

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

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Asynchronous and synchronous physical replication; geographically distributed replicas; support for object storages.

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Chain, star, and bi-directional replication
Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

MVCC

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users and roles. Column and row based policies. Quotas and resource limits. Pluggable authentication with LDAP and Kerberos. Password based, X.509 certificate, and SSH key authentication.

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Fine-grained Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) in addition to typical coarse-grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) according to SQL-standard. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Virtuoso is a modern multi-model RDBMS for managing data represented as tabular relations...
» more

Competitive advantages

Performance & Scale — as exemplified by DBpedia and the LOD Cloud it spawned, i.e.,...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Used for — Analytics/BI Conceptual Data Virtualization Enterprise Knowledge Graphs...
» more

Key customers

Broad use across enterprises and governments including — European Union (EU) US Government...
» more

Market metrics

Largest installed-base of Multi-Model RDBMS for AI-friendly Knowledge Graphs Platform...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Available in both Commercial Enterprise and Open Source (GPL v2) Editions Feature...
» 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.

Related products and services

3rd parties

Aiven for Clickhouse: Managed cloud data warehousing with high-speed analytics.
» more

DoubleCloud: Fully managed ClickHouse alongside best-in-class managed open-source services to build analytics at scale.
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
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Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
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CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
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Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

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