DBMS > Couchbase vs. FoundationDB

System Properties Comparison Couchbase vs. FoundationDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

Primary database model

Document store
Vector DBMS

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Secondary database models

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS
Wide column store

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

Score	13.82
Rank	#38	Overall
	#5	Document stores
	#3	Vector DBMS

Score	0.89
Rank	#197	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#29	Key-value stores
	#92	Relational DBMS

Website

www.couchbase.com

github.com/apple/foundationdb

Technical documentation

docs.couchbase.com

apple.github.io/foundationdb

Developer

Couchbase, Inc.

FoundationDB

Initial release

2011

2013

Current release

Server: 7.6, March 2024; Mobile: 3.3, August 2024; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), September 2024

6.2.28, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

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.

Implementation language

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

supported in specific SQL layer only

APIs and other access methods

CLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

in SQL-layer only

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

yes

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

selectable on a per-operation basis

Linearizable consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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

Ephemeral buckets

User concepts

Access control

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.

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More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

Couchbase climbs up the DB-Engines Ranking, increasing its popularity by 10% every month
2 June 2014, Matthias Gelbmann

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Recent citations in the news

Activist Investor Irenic Capital Builds Stake in Software Maker Couchbase
30 April 2025, Bloomberg.com

Here's Why We're Not At All Concerned With Couchbase's (NASDAQ:BASE) Cash Burn Situation
7 May 2025, Yahoo Finance

Couchbase Unveils Edge Server to Help Organizations Solve Real-World Edge Application Challenges
4 March 2025, PR Newswire

Couchbase’s Regine Nelson brings authentic leadership to employee engagement
26 February 2025, Ragan Communications

Couchbase Accelerates AI Agentic Application Development With New Database Services
2 December 2024, CRN Magazine

provided by Google News

Apple Acquires Durable Database Company FoundationDB
24 March 2015, TechCrunch

FoundationDB Record Layer: A Multi-Tenant Structured Datastore
25 July 2020, Apple Machine Learning Research

FoundationDB team’s new venture, Antithesis, raises $47M to enhance software testing
13 February 2024, SiliconANGLE

IBM Cloudant pulls plan to fund new foundational layer for CouchDB
15 March 2022, theregister.com

FoundationDB, a very interesting NoSQL database owned by Apple, is now an open-source project
19 April 2018, GeekWire

provided by Google News

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