DBMS > CouchDB vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. InfinityDB vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison CouchDB vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. InfinityDB vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

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

A Java embedded Key-Value Store which extends the Java Map interface

Widely used open source RDBMS

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

Primary database model

Document store

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	8.30
Rank	#47	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	13.64
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	0.08
Rank	#365	Overall
	#55	Key-value stores

Score	1061.34
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	44.89
Rank	#21	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Website

couchdb.apache.org

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

boilerbay.com

www.mysql.com

neo4j.com

Technical documentation

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

firebase.google.com/docs/database

boilerbay.com/infinitydb/manual

dev.mysql.com/doc

neo4j.com/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Boiler Bay Inc.

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Neo4j, Inc.

Initial release

2005

2012

2002

1995

2007

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

4.0

8.4.0, April 2024

5.20, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

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.

Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

Implementation language

Erlang

Java

C and C++

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

hosted

All OS with a Java VM

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

nested virtual Java Maps, multi-value, logical â€˜tuple spaceâ€™ runtime Schema upgrade

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

all Java primitives, Date, CLOB, BLOB, huge sparse arrays

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

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

manual creation possible, using inversions based on multi-value capability

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

Access via java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentNavigableMap Interface
Proprietary API to InfinityDB ItemSpace (boilerbay.com/docs/ItemSpaceDataStructures.htm)

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Supported programming languages

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

Java

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

limited functionality with using 'rules'

yes

proprietary syntax

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

none

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Immediate Consistency

READ-COMMITTED or SERIALIZED

Immediate Consistency

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

manual creation possible, using inversions based on multi-value capability

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

yes

ACID

Optimistic locking for transactions; no isolation for bulk loads

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

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 can be defined per database

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

More information provided by the system vendor

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