DBMS > Datomic vs. PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J

System Properties Comparison Datomic vs. PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J

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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

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

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

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

RDF store

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.29
Rank	#133	Overall
	#65	Relational DBMS

Score	616.50
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.26
Rank	#194	Overall
	#8	RDF stores

Website

www.datomic.com

www.postgresql.org

rdf4j.org

Technical documentation

docs.datomic.com

www.postgresql.org/docs

rdf4j.org/documentation

Developer

Cognitect

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

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

Initial release

2012

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2004

Current release

1.0.6362, January 2022

15.1, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

limited edition free

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

Java, Clojure

Java

Server operating systems

All OS with a Java VM

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

yes

RDF Schemas

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard with numerous extensions

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

Supported programming languages

Clojure
Java

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Java
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transaction Functions

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

yes

Triggers

By using transaction functions

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

But extensive use of caching in the application peers

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

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

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

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

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

Driving the Future of PostgreSQL Adoption
15 November 2021, Umair Shahid, Percona (sponsor)

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Conferences and events

more DBMS events

PGCon 2023, PostgreSQL Conference for Users and Developers
Ottawa, Canada, 30 May 2023 - 2 June 2023

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