DBMS > CouchDB vs. MySQL vs. QuestDB vs. Realm vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison CouchDB vs. MySQL vs. QuestDB vs. Realm vs. TimescaleDB

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.

Widely used open source RDBMS

A high performance open source SQL database for time series data

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Time Series DBMS

Document store

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	1083.74
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	2.52
Rank	#109	Overall
	#9	Time Series DBMS

Score	7.60
Rank	#52	Overall
	#9	Document stores

Score	4.64
Rank	#71	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

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

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

QuestDB Technology Inc

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Timescale

Initial release

2005

1995

2014

2017

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

8.4.0, April 2024

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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.

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

Implementation language

Erlang

C and C++

Java (Zero-GC), C++, Rust

Server operating systems

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocol

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

SQL with time-series extensions

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol

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

Supported programming languages

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

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

PostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust

over HTTP

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

yes

proprietary syntax

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

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

Change Listeners

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

horizontal partitioning (by timestamps)

none

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication with eventual consistency

none

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single document possible

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID for single-table writes

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

through memory mapped files

yes

In-Memory realm

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

yes

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Relational model with native time series support Column-based storage and time partitioned...
» more

Competitive advantages

High ingestion throughput: peak of 4M rows/sec (TSBS Benchmark) Code optimizations...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Financial tick data Industrial IoT Application Metrics Monitoring
» more

Key customers

Banks & Hedge funds, Yahoo, OKX, Airbus, Aquis Exchange, Net App, Cloudera, Airtel,...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Open source Apache 2.0 QuestDB Enterprise QuestDB Cloud
» more

News

QuestDB and Raspberry Pi 5 benchmark, a pocket-sized powerhouse
8 May 2024

Build your own resource monitor with QuestDB and Grafana
6 May 2024

Does "vpmovzxbd" Scare You? Here's Why it Doesn't Have To
12 April 2024

Create an ADS-B flight radar with QuestDB and a Raspberry Pi
8 April 2024

Build a temperature IoT sensor with Raspberry Pi Pico & QuestDB
5 April 2024

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.