DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Lovefield vs. NuoDB vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Lovefield vs. NuoDB vs. Snowflake

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

Google's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

NuoDB is a webscale distributed database that supports SQL and ACID transactions

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

Primary database model

Document store

Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

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

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	3.26
Rank	#92	Overall
	#13	Key-value stores
	#8	Wide column stores

Score	0.29
Rank	#293	Overall
	#133	Relational DBMS

Score	0.89
Rank	#198	Overall
	#92	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

cloud.google.com/bigtable

google.github.io/lovefield

www.3ds.com/nuodb-distributed-sql-database

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

doc.nuodb.com

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Google

Dassault Systèmes

originally NuoDB, Inc.

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2012

2015

2014

2013

2014

Current release

2.1.12, February 2017

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

limited edition free

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

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

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

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

hosted

Amazon EC2, Windows Azure, SoftLayer
Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

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

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

JavaScript

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

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

Java, SQL

user defined functions

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

Using read-only observers

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

data is dynamically stored/cached on the nodes where it is read/written

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Internal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zones

none

yes

Managed transparently by NuoDB

yes

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

Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

Atomic single-row operations

ACID

tunable commit protocol

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

yes

Temporary table

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Standard SQL roles/ privileges, Administrative Users

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

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.