DBMS > CouchDB vs. Informix vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak TS

System Properties Comparison CouchDB vs. Informix vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak TS

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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.

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Riak TS is a distributed NoSQL database optimized for time series data and based on Riak KV

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes 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

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	7.46
Rank	#51	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	16.32
Rank	#35	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	644.36
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	0.17
Rank	#318	Overall
	#27	Time Series DBMS

Website

couchdb.apache.org

www.ibm.com/products/informix

www.postgresql.org

Technical documentation

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

www.postgresql.org/docs

www.tiot.jp/riak-docs/riak/ts/latest

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

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

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Open Source, formerly Basho Technologies

Initial release

2005

1984

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2015

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

14.10.FC5, November 2020

16.4, August 2024

3.0.0, September 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

Erlang

C, C++ and Java

Erlang

Server operating systems

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

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

Linux
OS X

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

restricted

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes, limited

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

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

HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface

Supported programming languages

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

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

unofficial client library
C#
C++

unofficial client library
Clojure

unofficial client library
Dart

unofficial client library
Erlang
Go

unofficial client library
Groovy

unofficial client library
Haskell

unofficial client library
Java
JavaScript

unofficial client library
Lisp

unofficial client library
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

unofficial client library
Smalltalk

unofficial client library

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

yes

user defined functions

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

Erlang

Triggers

yes

pre-commit hooks and post-commit hooks

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

selectable replication factor

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

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

links between datasets can be stored

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

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

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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Conferences, events and webinars

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