DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Snowflake vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Snowflake vs. TimescaleDB

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.

High performance Time Series DBMS

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

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

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Document store

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	13.64
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	7.71
Rank	#49	Overall
	#2	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	4.46
Rank	#71	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

kx.com

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

www.snowflake.com

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

code.kx.com

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Microsoft

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Timescale

Initial release

2012

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

1989

2014

2017

Current release

3.6, May 2018

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free 32-bit version

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

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

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

user defined functions

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

user defined functions

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

with views

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

yes

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

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

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.