DBMS > dBASE vs. Ehcache vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

System Properties Comparison dBASE vs. Ehcache vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

dBase was one of the first databases with a development environment on PC's. Its latest version dBase V is still sold as dBase classic, which needs a DOS Emulation. The up-to-date product is dBase plus.

A widely adopted Java cache with tiered storage options

Microsoft Access combines a backend RDBMS (JET / ACE Engine) with a GUI frontend for data manipulation and queries.

The Access frontend is often used for accessing other datasources (DBMS, Excel, etc.)

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	10.34
Rank	#44	Overall
	#28	Relational DBMS

Score	4.89
Rank	#67	Overall
	#8	Key-value stores

Score	104.92
Rank	#11	Overall
	#8	Relational DBMS

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	77.99
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Website

www.dbase.com

www.ehcache.org

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

Technical documentation

www.dbase.com/support/knowledgebase

www.ehcache.org/documentation

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

Developer

Asthon Tate

Terracotta Inc, owned by Software AG

Microsoft

Initial release

1979

2009

1992

2014

2010

Current release

dBASE 2019, 2019

3.10.0, March 2022

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

V12

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2; commercial licenses available

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

Java

C++

Server operating systems

DOS

dBase Classic
Windows

dBase Pro

All OS with a Java VM

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON 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

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

but not compliant to any SQL standard

SQL-like query language

yes

APIs and other access methods

none

The IDE can access other DBMS or ODBC-sources.

JCache

ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

dBase proprietary IDE

Java

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

The IDE can access stored procedures in other database systems.

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

JavaScript

Transact SQL

Triggers

yes

Cache Event Listeners

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

by using Terracotta Server

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

yes

by using Terracotta Server

none

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, with always 3 replicas available

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Tunable Consistency (Strong, Eventual, Weak)

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

not for dBase internal data, but IDE does support transactions when accessing external DBMS

yes

supports JTA and can work as an XA resource

ACID

but no files for transaction logging

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

using a tiered cache-storage approach

yes

but no files for transaction logging

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 and roles

a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.