DBMS > FileMaker vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Realm

System Properties Comparison FileMaker vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Realm

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

FileMaker is a cross-platform RDBMS that includes a GUI frontend.

Cloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Document store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	47.91
Rank	#20	Overall
	#14	Relational DBMS

Score	13.64
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	27.71
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	7.41
Rank	#52	Overall
	#8	Document stores

Website

www.claris.com/filemaker

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

realm.io

Technical documentation

www.claris.com/resources/documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

realm.io/docs

Developer

Claris

a subsidiary of Apple

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Microsoft

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Initial release

1983

2012

2014

Current release

19.4.1, November 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Server operating systems

iOS

client part only
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

Data scheme

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

A http query request can return the data in XML format

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

via plugins

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

Filemaker WebDirect
JDBC
ODBC

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

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

Supported programming languages

PHP

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

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

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

limited functionality with using 'rules'

JavaScript

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Triggers

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

JavaScript

yes

Change Listeners

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication, warm standby

since Version 14

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

none

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

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

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

yes

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

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

In-Memory realm

User concepts

Access control

simple rights management via user accounts and connection to external directory services

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

yes

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