DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. Kdb vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. Kdb vs. Snowflake

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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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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 Time Series DBMS

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

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

Score	13.64
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	1.06
Rank	#185	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#85	Relational DBMS

Score	7.71
Rank	#49	Overall
	#2	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

github.com/apple/foundationdb

kx.com

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

apple.github.io/foundationdb

code.kx.com

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

FoundationDB

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2012

2013

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

2014

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

3.6, May 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

free 32-bit version

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

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

table attribute 'grouped'

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

in SQL-layer only

user defined functions

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

with views

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Source-replica replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

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

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

rights management via user accounts

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
» more

Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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