DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Snowflake vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Snowflake vs. Vertica

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.

Fully managed big data interactive analytics platform

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

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

column oriented

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store

If a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types/dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store

this is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

support for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/time-series-analysis

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	4.38
Rank	#77	Overall
	#41	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

azure.microsoft.com/services/data-explorer

www.snowflake.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Microsoft

Snowflake Computing Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2012

2019

2014

2005

Current release

cloud service with continuous releases

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

Fixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)

yes

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

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

bool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-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 fields are automatically indexed

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

Kusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subset

yes

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

Yes, possible languages: KQL, Python, R

user defined functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/management/updatepolicy

similar concept for controling cloud resources

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.

yes

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Spark connector (open source): github.com/Azure/azure-kusto-spark

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

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.

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Azure Active Directory Authentication

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
» more

Competitive advantages

Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
» more

Key customers

Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
» 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.