DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. MongoDB vs. OpenSearch vs. Realm

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. FoundationDB vs. MongoDB vs. OpenSearch vs. Realm

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine forked from Elasticsearch and based on Apache Lucene

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Document store

Search engine

Document store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS
Search engine

integrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS

Time Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS

currently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only

Vector 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	421.65
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	16.36
Rank	#37	Overall
	#4	Search engines

Score	7.60
Rank	#52	Overall
	#9	Document stores

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.mongodb.com

github.com/opensearch-project
opensearch.org

realm.io

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

apple.github.io/foundationdb

www.mongodb.com/docs/manual

opensearch.org/docs/latest

realm.io/docs

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

FoundationDB

MongoDB, Inc

Amazon Web Services

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Initial release

2012

2013

2009

2021

2014

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

6.0.7, June 2023

2.5.0, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

MongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

Open Source

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

MongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.

Aiven for OpenSearch: Fully managed open source search and analytics suite. Out-of-the-box integrations get you up and running in a couple of clicks.

Implementation language

C++

Java

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

Although schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.

schema-free

Flexible type definitions. Once a type is defined, it is persistent

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

some layers support typing

yes

string, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatial

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

All search fields are automatically indexed

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interface

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

Actionscript

unofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure

unofficial driver
ColdFusion

unofficial driver
D

unofficial driver
Dart

unofficial driver
Delphi

unofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy

unofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp

unofficial driver
Lua

unofficial driver
MatLab

unofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell

unofficial driver
Prolog

unofficial driver
Python
R

unofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk

unofficial driver
Swift

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Elasticsearch client

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

in SQL-layer only

JavaScript

yes

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

yes

by using the 'percolation' feature

yes

Change Listeners

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Partitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.

Sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication

yes

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

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

Eventual Consistency

can be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency

default behaviour

Eventual Consistency

Synchronous doc based replication. Get by ID may show delays up to 1 sec. Configurable write consistency: one, quorum, all

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

Transaction concepts

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

yes

ACID

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

yes

In-Memory realm

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights for users and roles

yes

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
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OpenSearch is a highly scalable and extensible open-source software suite for search,...
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Competitive advantages

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
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Distributed as fully open source under Apache License, Version 2.0 (ALv2), OpenSearch...
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Typical application scenarios

AI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
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The OpenSearch platform is used across a broad range of search , analytics, and observability...
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Key customers

ADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
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Market metrics

Hundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
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Licensing and pricing models

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
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The OpenSearch Project offers open source software licensed under Apache License...
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