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

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFirebase Realtime Database  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure Cosmos DB infoformer name was Azure DocumentDB  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionCloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database serviceDatabase as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server
Primary database modelDocument storeDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store
Relational DBMS
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score13.43
Rank#39  Overall
#6  Document stores
Score22.94
Rank#26  Overall
#4  Document stores
#2  Graph DBMS
#3  Key-value stores
#2  Wide column stores
Score75.45
Rank#17  Overall
#12  Relational DBMS
Websitefirebase.google.com/­products/­realtime-databaseazure.microsoft.com/­services/­cosmos-dbazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­products/­azure-sql/­database
Technical documentationfirebase.google.com/­docs/­databaselearn.microsoft.com/­azure/­cosmos-dbdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­azure-sql
DeveloperGoogle infoacquired by Google 2014MicrosoftMicrosoft
Initial release201220142010
Current releaseV12
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercialcommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageC++
Server operating systemshostedhostedhosted
Data schemeschema-freeschema-freeyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infoJSON typesyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.noyes
Secondary indexesyesyes infoAll properties auto-indexed by defaultyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoSQL-like query languageyes
APIs and other access methodsAndroid
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API
DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesJava
JavaScript
Objective-C
.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 infoStored procedureslimited functionality with using 'rules'JavaScriptTransact SQL
TriggersCallbacks are triggered when data changesJavaScriptyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud service
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyes, with always 3 replicas available
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnowith Hadoop integration infoIntegration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*no
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency infoif the client is offline
Immediate Consistency infoif the client is online
Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infoConsistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datayesMulti-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partitionACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
User concepts infoAccess controlyes, based on authentication and database rulesAccess rights can be defined down to the item levelfine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources
Firebase Realtime DatabaseMicrosoft Azure Cosmos DB infoformer name was Azure DocumentDBMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure
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