DBMS > Couchbase vs. IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. Lovefield vs. MarkLogic

System Properties Comparison Couchbase vs. IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. Lovefield vs. MarkLogic

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

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

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Operational and transactional Enterprise NoSQL database

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Document store
Native XML DBMS
RDF store

as of version 7
Search engine

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

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

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

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	0.29
Rank	#293	Overall
	#133	Relational DBMS

Score	5.92
Rank	#58	Overall
	#10	Document stores
	#1	Native XML DBMS
	#1	RDF stores
	#6	Search engines

Website

www.couchbase.com

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.ibm.com/products/informix

google.github.io/lovefield

www.marklogic.com

Technical documentation

docs.couchbase.com

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

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

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

docs.marklogic.com

Developer

Couchbase, Inc.

IBM

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.

Google

MarkLogic Corp.

Initial release

2011

1983

host version

1984

2014

2001

Current release

Server: 7.2, June 2023; Mobile: 3.1, March 2022; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), June 2023

12.1, October 2016

14.10.FC5, November 2020

2.1.12, February 2017

11.0, December 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

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

commercial

free version is available

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is available

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 and C++

C, C++ and Java

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Schema can be enforced

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

yes

SQL92

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
JSON API

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

Java API
Node.js Client API
ODBC
proprietary Optic API

Proprietary Query API, introduced with version 9
RESTful HTTP API
SPARQL
WebDAV
XDBC
XQuery
XSLT

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

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

JavaScript

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes

via XQuery or JavaScript

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

Using read-only observers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

via Hadoop Connector, HDFS Direct Access and in-database MapReduce jobs

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

can act as a resource manager in an XA/JTA transaction

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

using MemoryDB

yes, with Range Indexes

User concepts

Access control

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

Role-based access control at the document and subdocument levels

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