DBMS > CockroachDB vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Geode vs. Redis vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison CockroachDB vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Geode vs. Redis vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

CockroachDB is a distributed database architected for modern cloud applications. It is wire compatible with PostgreSQL and backed by a Key-Value Store, which is either RocksDB or a purpose-built derivative, called Pebble.

Cloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.

Geode is a distributed data container, pooling memory, CPU, network resources, and optionally local disk across multiple processes

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

An in-memory SQL relational database that delivers microsecond response and high throughput for OLTP applications. TimesTen can be deployed as a standalone database or as a cache to a backend Oracle database.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	4.74
Rank	#67	Overall
	#36	Relational DBMS

Score	13.60
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	1.51
Rank	#147	Overall
	#25	Key-value stores

Score	149.43
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	1.26
Rank	#164	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

www.cockroachlabs.com

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

geode.apache.org

redis.com
redis.io

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

www.cockroachlabs.com/docs

firebase.google.com/docs/database

geode.apache.org/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

docs.oracle.com/en/database/other-databases/timesten/index.html

Developer

Cockroach Labs

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Originally developed by Gemstone. They outsourced the project to Apache in 2015 but still deliver a commercial version as Gemfire.

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Oracle

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

2015

2012

2002

2009

1998

Current release

24.1.0, May 2024

1.1, February 2017

7.2.5, May 2024

Release 22.1

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0, commercial license available

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2; commercial licenses available as Gemfire

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

commercial

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

Java

Server operating systems

Linux
macOS
Windows

hosted

All OS with a Java VM

the JDK (8 or later) is also required

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

IBM AIX Power PC 64-bit
Linux arm64
Linux x86-64
Solaris SPARC 64
Solaris SPARC/x86
Solaris x86-64

Data scheme

dynamic schema

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes, wire compatible with PostgreSQL

SQL-like query language (OQL)

with RediSQL module

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

Java Client API
Memcached protocol
RESTful HTTP API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)
Pro*C/C++ programming interfaces
SQL and PL/SQL via JDBC

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
All JVM based languages
C++
Groovy
Java
Scala

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

C
C++
Java
Node.js
PL/SQL
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

user defined functions

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

PL/SQL

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

Cache Event Listeners

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning (by key range)

all tables are translated to an ordered KV store and then broken down into 64MB ranges, which are then used as replicas in RAFT

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication using RAFT

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Eventual Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

yes

yes, on a single node

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

Role-based access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights per client and object definable

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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