DBMS > DuckDB vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. HarperDB vs. LokiJS vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison DuckDB vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. HarperDB vs. LokiJS vs. PostgreSQL

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

An embeddable, in-process, column-oriented SQL OLAP RDBMS

Google's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.

Ultra-low latency distributed database with an intuitive REST API supporting NoSQL and SQL (including joins). Deployment of functions and databases simultaneously with a consolidated node-level architecture.

In-memory JavaScript DBMS

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key-value store
Wide column store

Document store

Relational DBMS

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

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	4.63
Rank	#69	Overall
	#37	Relational DBMS

Score	3.15
Rank	#95	Overall
	#14	Key-value stores
	#8	Wide column stores

Score	0.60
Rank	#244	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	0.49
Rank	#260	Overall
	#42	Document stores

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Website

duckdb.org

cloud.google.com/bigtable

www.harperdb.io

github.com/techfort/LokiJS

www.postgresql.org

Technical documentation

duckdb.org/docs

cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs

docs.harperdb.io/docs

techfort.github.io/LokiJS

www.postgresql.org/docs

Developer

Google

HarperDB

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Initial release

2018

2015

2017

2014

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

Current release

1.0.0, June 2024

3.1, August 2021

16.3, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT License

commercial

free community edition available

Open Source

BSD

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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Implementation language

C++

Node.js

JavaScript

Server operating systems

server-less

hosted

Linux
OS X

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

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

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

dynamic schema

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

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

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like data manipulation statements

yes

standard with numerous extensions

APIs and other access methods

Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC)
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

JavaScript API

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

Supported programming languages

C
C#

3rd party driver
C++
Crystal

3rd party driver
Go

3rd party driver
Java
Lisp

3rd party driver
Python
R
Ruby

3rd party driver
Rust
Swift
Zig

3rd party driver

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C#
C++
ColdFusion
D
Dart
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
MatLab
Objective C
Perl
PHP
PowerShell
Prolog
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift

JavaScript

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

View functions in JavaScript

user defined functions

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

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

A table resides as a whole on one (or more) nodes in a cluster

none

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Internal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zones

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

none

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)

Immediate Consistency

none

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic single-row operations

Atomic execution of specific operations

atomic operations within a single collection possible

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, using LMDB

yes

Serialization of a DB in a Node.JS/Cordova/PhoneGap environment. Usage of the IndexedDB-API in a browser.

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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Recent citations in the news

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11 June 2024, PR Newswire

DuckDB: The tiny but powerful analytics database
15 May 2024, InfoWorld

DuckDB promises greater stability with 1.0 release
5 June 2024, The Register

My First Billion (of Rows) in DuckDB | by João Pedro | May, 2024
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DuckDB: In-Process Python Analytics for Not-Quite-Big Data
31 May 2024, The New Stack

provided by Google News

Google Introduces Autoscaling for Cloud Bigtable for Optimizing Costs
31 January 2022, InfoQ.com

Google scales up Cloud Bigtable NoSQL database
27 January 2022, TechTarget

Review: Google Bigtable scales with ease
7 September 2016, InfoWorld

Google Cloud makes it cheaper to run smaller workloads on Bigtable
7 April 2020, TechCrunch

Google introduces Cloud Bigtable managed NoSQL database to process data at scale
6 May 2015, VentureBeat

provided by Google News

Serent Capital invests in software firm HarperDB
12 June 2024, PE Hub

HarperDB Attracts Significant Growth Investment from Serent Capital
12 June 2024, Business Wire

HarperDB Receives Growth Investment from Serent Capital
12 June 2024, FinSMEs

Startups of the Year 2023: Meet HarperDB - A Database and Application Development Platform
22 June 2023, hackernoon.com

Jaxon Repp on HarperDB Distributed Database Platform
23 March 2022, InfoQ.com

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