DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Firebird vs. Redis vs. TerminusDB vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Firebird vs. Redis vs. TerminusDB vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Scalable Graph Database platform making enterprise data available by exploiting inferred entities and relationships

In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

Document store
RDF store

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

Score	13.64
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	20.50
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	155.94
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	0.23
Rank	#316	Overall
	#27	Graph DBMS

Score	1.36
Rank	#161	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

www.firebirdsql.org

redis.com
redis.io

terminusdb.com

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

terminusdb.github.io/terminusdb/#

docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Firebird Foundation

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

DataChemist Ltd.

Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

2012

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2009

2018

1998

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

7.2.5, May 2024

11.0.0, January 2023

11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

Open Source

GPL V3

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.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C and C++

Prolog, Rust

Server operating systems

hosted

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Linux

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with RediSQL module

SQL-like query language (WOQL)

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

OWL
RESTful HTTP API
WOQL (Web Object Query Language)

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

JavaScript
Python

C
C++
Java
PL/SQL

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

PSQL

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

yes

PL/SQL

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Graph Partitioning

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

Journaling Streams

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

ACID

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

yes

in-memory journaling

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

Role-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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