DBMS > Datomic vs. Informix vs. NCache vs. Redis vs. SQLite

System Properties Comparison Datomic vs. Informix vs. NCache vs. Redis vs. SQLite

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Datomic builds on immutable values, supports point-in-time queries and uses 3rd party systems for durability

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

Open-Source and Enterprise in-memory Key-Value Store

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.

Widely used embeddable, in-process RDBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Key-value store

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

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Search engine

Using distributed Lucene

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	1.55
Rank	#144	Overall
	#67	Relational DBMS

Score	16.32
Rank	#35	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	0.91
Rank	#196	Overall
	#29	Key-value stores

Score	149.43
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	103.35
Rank	#10	Overall
	#7	Relational DBMS

Website

www.datomic.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

www.alachisoft.com/ncache

redis.com
redis.io

www.sqlite.org

Technical documentation

docs.datomic.com

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

www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs

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

www.sqlite.org/docs.html

Developer

Cognitect

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.

Alachisoft

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Dwayne Richard Hipp

Initial release

2012

1984

2005

2009

2000

Current release

1.0.7180, July 2024

14.10.FC5, November 2020

5.3.3, April 2024

7.2.5, May 2024

3.46.1 (13 August 2024), August 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

limited edition free

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

Enterprise Edition available

Open Source

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

Open Source

Public Domain

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

Java, Clojure

C, C++ and Java

C#, .NET, .NET Core, Java

Server operating systems

All OS with a Java VM

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

server-less

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

dynamic column types

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

partial

Supported data types are Lists, Queues, Hashsets, Dictionary and Counter

partial

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

yes

not rigid because of 'dynamic typing' concept.

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query syntax and LINQ for searching the cache. Cache Synchronization with SQL Server using SQL dependency.

with RediSQL module

yes

SQL-92 is not fully supported

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
JSON API

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

IDistributedCache
JCache
LINQ
Proprietary native API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

ADO.NET

inofficial driver
JDBC

inofficial driver
ODBC

inofficial driver

Supported programming languages

Clojure
Java

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

.Net
.Net Core
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

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

Actionscript
Ada
Basic
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Forth
Fortran
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transaction Functions

yes

support for stored procedures with SQL-Server CLR

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

Triggers

By using transaction functions

yes

Notifications

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Sharding

yes

Sharding

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

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, with selectable consistency level

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Strong Eventual Consistency over WAN with Conflict Resolution using Bridge Topology

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

optimistic locking and pessimistic locking

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

via file-system locks

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

using external storage systems (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Couchbase and others)

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

recommended only for testing and development

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

Authentication to access the cache via Active Directory/LDAP (possible roles: user, administrator)

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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