DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. GigaSpaces vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. GigaSpaces vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

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

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

High performance in-memory data grid platform, powering three products: Smart Cache, Smart ODS (Operational Data Store), Smart Augmented Transactions

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Document store
Object oriented DBMS

Values are user defined objects

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Graph DBMS
Search engine

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	1.03
Rank	#190	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#89	Relational DBMS

Score	0.97
Rank	#192	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#6	Object oriented DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.gigaspaces.com

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

apple.github.io/foundationdb

docs.gigaspaces.com/latest/landing.html

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

FoundationDB

Gigaspaces Technologies

Microsoft

Initial release

2012

2013

2000

1989

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

15.5, September 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Apache Version 2; Commercial licenses available

commercial

restricted free version is available

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++

Java, C++, .Net

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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.

XML can be used for describing objects metadata

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-99 for query and DML statements

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

GigaSpaces LRMI
Hibernate
JCache
JDBC
JPA
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

.Net
C++
Java
Python
Scala

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes, event driven architecture

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Multi-source replication

synchronous or asynchronous
Source-replica replication

synchronous or asynchronous

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Map-Reduce pattern can be built with XAP task executors

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable: ALL, QUORUM, ANY

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

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

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Role-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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