DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. MySQL vs. Redis vs. Spark SQL

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. MySQL vs. Redis vs. Spark SQL

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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.

Widely used open source RDBMS

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.

Spark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processing

Primary database model

Document store

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

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
Spatial DBMS

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	15.00
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	1087.72
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	156.44
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	19.15
Rank	#33	Overall
	#20	Relational DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

www.mysql.com

redis.com
redis.io

spark.apache.org/sql

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

dev.mysql.com/doc

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

spark.apache.org/docs/latest/sql-programming-guide.html

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Apache Software Foundation

Initial release

2012

1995

2009

2014

Current release

8.3.0, January 2024

7.2.4, January 2024

3.5.0 ( 2.13), September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

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

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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 MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

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

Implementation language

C and C++

Scala

Server operating systems

hosted

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

with RediSQL module

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

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

Java
Python
R
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

yes

proprietary syntax

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

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

Sharding

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

yes, utilizing Spark Core

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

Transaction concepts

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

yes

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

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

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