DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

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 containerised multi-model DBMS, interoperability and analytics data platform with wide capabilities for vertical and horizontal scalability

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

Primary database model

Document store

Document store
Key-value store
Object oriented DBMS
Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	4.05
Rank	#83	Overall
	#14	Document stores
	#10	Key-value stores
	#1	Object oriented DBMS
	#45	Relational DBMS

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

Score	77.99
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

www.intersystems.com/products/intersystems-iris

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

InterSystems

Microsoft

Initial release

2012

2018

2014

2010

Current release

2023.3, June 2023

V12

License

Commercial or Open Source

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

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

AIX
Linux
macOS
Ubuntu
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

depending on used data model

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

yes

SQL-like query language

yes

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

yes

JavaScript

Transact SQL

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, with always 3 replicas available

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

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

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

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

ACID

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

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

yes

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

InterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform which includes a multi-model...
» more

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.