DBMS > DuckDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison DuckDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. VoltDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

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.

Relational DBMS

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	4.79
Rank	#65	Overall
	#35	Relational DBMS

Score	638.91
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.45
Rank	#151	Overall
	#69	Relational DBMS

Website

duckdb.org

www.postgresql.org

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

duckdb.org/docs

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2018

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2010

Current release

1.0.0, June 2024

16.3, May 2024

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT License

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Java, C++

Server operating systems

server-less

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

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

yes

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

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC)
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

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

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

Java

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

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

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

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

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

More information provided by the system vendor

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Related products and services

3rd parties

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Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
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pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
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CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
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SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
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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

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

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

show all

Conferences, events and webinars

more DBMS events

PASS Data Community Summit
Seattle, Washington, 4-8 November 2024

Recent citations in the news

Unleashing Postgres for Analytics With DuckDB Integration
24 July 2024, The New Stack

My First Billion (of Rows) in DuckDB
1 May 2024, Towards Data Science

DuckDB Walks to the Beat of Its Own Analytics Drum
5 March 2024, Datanami

Enabling Remote Query Execution through DuckDB Extensions
12 March 2024, InfoQ.com

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

provided by Google News

Better Security and Performance For Free? Why PostgreSQL is Amazing
25 July 2024, Security Boulevard

Synopsis of several compelling features in PostgreSQL 16 | Amazon Web Services
12 July 2024, AWS Blog

Pgextensions Index For PostgreSQL
22 July 2024, iProgrammer

Best of Makers: PostgreSQL Takes a New Turn
22 February 2024, The New Stack

General availability: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server enhanced disaster recovery features
24 April 2024, azure.microsoft.com

provided by Google News

Unveiling Volt Active Data’s game-changing approach to limitless app performance
16 October 2023, YourStory

VoltDB Launches Active(N) Lossless Cross Data Center Replication
31 August 2021, PR Newswire

VoltDB Turns to Real-Time Analytics with NewSQL Database
30 January 2014, Datanami

VoltDB Aims for Fast Big Data Development
29 January 2015, ADT Magazine

VoltDB Upgrades Power, Security of Its In-Memory Database
1 February 2017, eWeek

provided by Google News

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