DBMS > ClickHouse vs. IBM Db2 vs. Ingres vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison ClickHouse vs. IBM Db2 vs. Ingres vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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.

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

Well established RDBMS

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

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

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

Time Series DBMS

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

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	15.55
Rank	#38	Overall
	#23	Relational DBMS

Score	125.90
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	3.80
Rank	#82	Overall
	#44	Relational DBMS

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	4.46
Rank	#71	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Website

clickhouse.com

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.actian.com/databases/ingres

www.postgresql.org

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

clickhouse.com/docs

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

docs.actian.com/ingres

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Clickhouse Inc.

IBM

Actian Corporation

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Timescale

Initial release

2016

1983

host version

1974

originally developed at University Berkely in early 1970s

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2017

Current release

v24.4.1.2088-stable, May 2024

12.1, October 2016

11.2, May 2022

16.3, May 2024

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

free version is available

commercial

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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.

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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.
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Implementation language

C++

C and C++

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
macOS

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
HP Open VMS
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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.

but tools for importing/exporting data from/to XML-files available

yes

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

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

Close to ANSI SQL (SQL/JSON + extensions)

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

.NET Client API
JDBC
ODBC
proprietary protocol (OpenAPI)

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

Supported programming languages

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

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

.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

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

key based and custom

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

horizontal partitioning

Ingres Star to access multiple databases simultaneously

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

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

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Ingres Replicator

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

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

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC

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 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

More information provided by the system vendor

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

3rd parties

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» more

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Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

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