DBMS > Couchbase vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. NuoDB vs. RDF4J vs. Redis

System Properties Comparison Couchbase vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. NuoDB vs. RDF4J vs. Redis

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

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

NuoDB is a webscale distributed database that supports SQL and ACID transactions

RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Primary database model

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

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
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	77.99
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Score	0.89
Rank	#198	Overall
	#92	Relational DBMS

Score	0.69
Rank	#230	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Website

www.couchbase.com

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

www.3ds.com/nuodb-distributed-sql-database

rdf4j.org

redis.com
redis.io

Technical documentation

docs.couchbase.com

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

doc.nuodb.com

rdf4j.org/documentation

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

Developer

Couchbase, Inc.

Microsoft

Dassault Systèmes

originally NuoDB, Inc.

Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Initial release

2011

2010

2013

2004

2009

Current release

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

V12

7.2.4, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

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

commercial

limited edition free

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

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.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C++

Java

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Amazon EC2, Windows Azure, SoftLayer
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

RDF Schemas

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

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

yes

with RediSQL module

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
ODBC

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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

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

Java
PHP
Python

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

Transact SQL

Java, SQL

yes

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Automatic Sharding

data is dynamically stored/cached on the nodes where it is read/written

none

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

yes, with always 3 replicas available

yes

Managed transparently by NuoDB

none

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

tunable commit protocol

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

Temporary table

yes

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

Standard SQL roles/ privileges, Administrative Users

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

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