DBMS > Datomic vs. Informix vs. Neo4j vs. Redis vs. SQLite

System Properties Comparison Datomic vs. Informix vs. Neo4j 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

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

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

Graph DBMS

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

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	1.59
Rank	#150	Overall
	#69	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

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

Score	114.32
Rank	#10	Overall
	#7	Relational DBMS

Website

www.datomic.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

neo4j.com

redis.com
redis.io

www.sqlite.org

Technical documentation

docs.datomic.com

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

neo4j.com/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.

Neo4j, Inc.

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Dwayne Richard Hipp

Initial release

2012

1984

2007

2009

2000

Current release

1.0.6735, June 2023

14.10.FC5, November 2020

5.19, April 2024

7.2.4, January 2024

3.45.3 (15 April 2024), April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

limited edition free

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses 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.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

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

Implementation language

Java, Clojure

C, C++ and Java

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

All OS with a Java VM

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

server-less

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

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

yes

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

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

with RediSearch module

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

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

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

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
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
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

User defined Procedures and Functions

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

Triggers

By using transaction functions

yes

via event handler

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 using Neo4j Fabric

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

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

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

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

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

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

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

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

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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