DBMS > CouchDB vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

System Properties Comparison CouchDB vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

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.

Google's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

DBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime.

RDBMS database and synchronization technologies for server, desktop, remote office, and mobile environments

Primary database model

Document store

Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

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

Document store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

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	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	3.26
Rank	#92	Overall
	#13	Key-value stores
	#8	Wide column stores

Score	645.54
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	2.74
Rank	#105	Overall
	#19	Document stores

Score	4.25
Rank	#79	Overall
	#43	Relational DBMS

Website

couchdb.apache.org

cloud.google.com/bigtable

www.postgresql.org

rethinkdb.com

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sql-anywhere.html

Technical documentation

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs

www.postgresql.org/docs

rethinkdb.com/docs

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

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

Google

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

The Linux Foundation

since July 2017

SAP

formerly Sybase

Initial release

2005

2015

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2009

1992

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

16.3, May 2024

2.4.1, August 2020

17, July 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Apache Version 2

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.

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Implementation language

Erlang

C++

Server operating systems

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

hosted

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, binary, float, bool, date, geometry

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

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)

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

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

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

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

community-supported driver
C#

community-supported driver
C++

community-supported driver
Clojure

community-supported driver
Dart

community-supported driver
Erlang

community-supported driver
Go

community-supported driver
Haskell

community-supported driver
Java

official driver
JavaScript (Node.js)

official driver
Lisp

community-supported driver
Lua

community-supported driver
Objective-C

community-supported driver
Perl

community-supported driver
PHP

community-supported driver
Python

official driver
Ruby

official driver
Scala

community-supported driver

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

user defined functions

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

yes, in C/C++, Java, .Net or Perl

Triggers

yes

Client-side triggers through changefeeds

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

Sharding

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

Sharding

range based

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Internal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zones

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

Atomic single-row operations

ACID

Atomic single-document operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

MVCC based

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

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

users and table-level permissions

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.

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