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DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. PostgreSQL vs. Snowflake vs. SwayDB

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. PostgreSQL vs. Snowflake vs. SwayDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFirebase Realtime Database  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonSnowflake  Xexclude from comparisonSwayDB  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.Widely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLCloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured dataAn embeddable, non-blocking, type-safe key-value store for single or multiple disks and in-memory storage
Primary database modelDocument storeRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Relational DBMSKey-value store
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score15.07
Rank#38  Overall
#6  Document stores
Score634.91
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score125.38
Rank#9  Overall
#6  Relational DBMS
Score0.03
Rank#385  Overall
#60  Key-value stores
Websitefirebase.google.com/­products/­realtime-databasewww.postgresql.orgwww.snowflake.comswaydb.simer.au
Technical documentationfirebase.google.com/­docs/­databasewww.postgresql.org/­docsdocs.snowflake.net/­manuals/­index.html
DeveloperGoogle infoacquired by Google 2014PostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerSnowflake Computing Inc.Simer Plaha
Initial release20121989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL20142018
Current release16.2, February 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoBSDcommercialOpen Source infoGNU Affero GPL V3.0
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnoyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
Implementation languageCScala
Server operating systemshostedFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
hosted
Data schemeschema-freeyesyes infosupport of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)schema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesno
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 infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.yesno
Secondary indexesyesyesno
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoyes infostandard with numerous extensionsyesno
APIs and other access methodsAndroid
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesJava
JavaScript
Objective-C
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Java
Kotlin
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored procedureslimited functionality with using 'rules'user defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.user defined functionsno
TriggersCallbacks are triggered when data changesyesno infosimilar concept for controling cloud resourcesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodespartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashyesnone
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsyesnone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency infoif the client is offline
Immediate Consistency infoif the client is online
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datayesACIDACIDAtomic execution of operations
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nonoyes
User concepts infoAccess controlyes, based on authentication and database rulesfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authenticationno

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More resources
Firebase Realtime DatabasePostgreSQLSnowflakeSwayDB
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