DBMS > FileMaker vs. Informix vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostGIS vs. SwayDB

System Properties Comparison FileMaker vs. Informix vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostGIS vs. SwayDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Spatial extension of PostgreSQL

An embeddable, non-blocking, type-safe key-value store for single or multiple disks and in-memory storage

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Spatial DBMS

Key-value store

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	47.91
Rank	#20	Overall
	#14	Relational DBMS

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

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

Score	21.72
Rank	#29	Overall
	#1	Spatial DBMS

Score	0.04
Rank	#387	Overall
	#61	Key-value stores

Website

www.claris.com/filemaker

www.ibm.com/products/informix

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

postgis.net

swaydb.simer.au

Technical documentation

www.claris.com/resources/documentation

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

postgis.net/documentation

Developer

Claris

a subsidiary of Apple

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Microsoft

Simer Plaha

Initial release

1983

1984

2014

2005

2018

Current release

19.4.1, November 2021

14.10.FC5, November 2020

3.4.2, February 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

Open Source

GPL v2.0

Open Source

GNU Affero GPL V3.0

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

C, C++ and Java

Scala

Server operating systems

iOS

client part only
Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

via plugins

yes

SQL-like query language

yes

APIs and other access methods

Filemaker WebDirect
JDBC
ODBC

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

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

Supported programming languages

PHP

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

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

Java
Kotlin
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

JavaScript

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

based on PostgreSQL

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication, warm standby

since Version 14

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

based on PostgreSQL

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

Immediate Consistency

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

ACID

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Atomic execution of operations

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

User concepts

Access control

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

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

yes

based on PostgreSQL

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