DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. NCache vs. Redis vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. NCache vs. Redis vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

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.

A horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.

Open-Source and Enterprise in-memory Key-Value Store

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

RDBMS database and synchronization technologies for server, desktop, remote office, and mobile environments

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Search engine

Using distributed Lucene

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	2.89
Rank	#103	Overall
	#52	Relational DBMS

Score	0.94
Rank	#195	Overall
	#29	Key-value stores

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	4.25
Rank	#79	Overall
	#43	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.alachisoft.com/ncache

redis.com
redis.io

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sql-anywhere.html

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Google

Alachisoft

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

SAP

formerly Sybase

Initial release

2012

2017

2005

2009

1992

Current release

5.3.3, April 2024

7.2.5, May 2024

17, July 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Enterprise Edition available

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

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.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C#, .NET, .NET Core, Java

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are Lists, Queues, Hashsets, Dictionary and Counter

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

with RediSearch module

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

SQL-like query syntax and LINQ for searching the cache. Cache Synchronization with SQL Server using SQL dependency.

with RediSQL module

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC

At present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API

IDistributedCache
JCache
LINQ
Proprietary native API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
.Net Core
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

support for stored procedures with SQL-Server CLR

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

yes, in C/C++, Java, .Net or Perl

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

Notifications

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

yes

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes, with selectable consistency level

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

yes

through RedisGears

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

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Strong Eventual Consistency over WAN with Conflict Resolution using Bridge Topology

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

by using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

optimistic locking and pessimistic locking

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

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

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

Authentication to access the cache via Active Directory/LDAP (possible roles: user, administrator)

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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