DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure Table Storage vs. Oracle

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure Table Storage vs. Oracle

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

A Wide Column Store for rapid development using massive semi-structured datasets

Widely used RDBMS

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
RDF store

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Spatial DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Vector DBMS

since Oracle 23

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	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	4.48
Rank	#75	Overall
	#6	Wide column stores

Score	1236.29
Rank	#1	Overall
	#1	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

github.com/apple/foundationdb

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/storage/tables

www.oracle.com/database

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

apple.github.io/foundationdb

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.oracle.com/en/database

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Oracle

Initial release

2012

2013

2014

2012

1980

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

23c, September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is available

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++

C and C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

yes

Schemaless in JSON and XML columns

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

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

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-like query language

yes

with proprietary extensions

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

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

RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

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

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Cobol
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Fortran
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Objective C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

in SQL-layer only

JavaScript

PL/SQL

also stored procedures in Java possible

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

implicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

can be realized in PL/SQL

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

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session 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

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

optimistic locking

ACID

isolation level can be parameterized

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

Version 12c introduced the new option 'Oracle Database In-Memory'

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

Access rights based on private key authentication or shared access signatures

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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