DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. LokiJS vs. MarkLogic vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. LokiJS vs. MarkLogic vs. Snowflake

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

In-memory JavaScript DBMS

Operational and transactional Enterprise NoSQL database

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

Document store

Document store
Native XML DBMS
RDF store

as of version 7
Search engine

Relational 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	0.43
Rank	#264	Overall
	#42	Document stores

Score	5.92
Rank	#58	Overall
	#10	Document stores
	#1	Native XML DBMS
	#1	RDF stores
	#6	Search engines

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

github.com/apple/foundationdb

github.com/techfort/LokiJS

www.marklogic.com

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

apple.github.io/foundationdb

techfort.github.io/LokiJS

docs.marklogic.com

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

FoundationDB

MarkLogic Corp.

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2012

2013

2014

2001

2014

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

11.0, December 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

Schema can be enforced

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

via views

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

SQL92

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

JavaScript API

Java API
Node.js Client API
ODBC
proprietary Optic API

Proprietary Query API, introduced with version 9
RESTful HTTP API
SPARQL
WebDAV
XDBC
XQuery
XSLT

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

JavaScript

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

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

in SQL-layer only

View functions in JavaScript

yes

via XQuery or JavaScript

user defined functions

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

Sharding

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

via Hadoop Connector, HDFS Direct Access and in-database MapReduce jobs

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

none

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

atomic operations within a single collection possible

ACID

can act as a resource manager in an XA/JTA transaction

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Serialization of a DB in a Node.JS/Cordova/PhoneGap environment. Usage of the IndexedDB-API in a browser.

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

yes, with Range Indexes

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Role-based access control at the document and subdocument levels

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

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