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DBMS > Firebird vs. GBase vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison Firebird vs. GBase vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. PostgreSQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFirebird  Xexclude from comparisonGBase  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFirebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBaseWidely used RDBMS in China, including analytical, transactional, distributed transactional, and cloud-native data warehousing.A horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.Widely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.
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
Score20.82
Rank#30  Overall
#18  Relational DBMS
Score1.07
Rank#185  Overall
#86  Relational DBMS
Score2.89
Rank#103  Overall
#52  Relational DBMS
Score645.54
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Websitewww.firebirdsql.orgwww.gbase.cncloud.google.com/­spannerwww.postgresql.org
Technical documentationwww.firebirdsql.org/­en/­reference-manualscloud.google.com/­spanner/­docswww.postgresql.org/­docs
DeveloperFirebird FoundationGeneral Data Technology Co., Ltd.GooglePostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developer
Initial release2000 infoAs fork of Borland's InterBase200420171989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL
Current release5.0.0, January 2024GBase 8a, GBase 8s, GBase 8c16.3, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoInitial Developer's Public LicensecommercialcommercialOpen Source infoBSD
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonoyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageC and C++C, Java, PythonC
Server operating systemsAIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less infoFirebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows
LinuxhostedFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyes
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.yesnoyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesyesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesStandard with numerous extensionsyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yes infostandard with numerous extensions
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC infoJaybird
ODBC
OLE DB
ADO.NET
C API
JDBC
ODBC
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesC
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
C#Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresPSQLuser defined functionsnouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.
Triggersyesyesnoyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesnonehorizontal partitioning (by range, list and hash) and vertical partitioningShardingpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesSource-replica replicationyesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Source-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensions
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyesyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACID infoStrict serializable isolationACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayes infoFeatures a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writersyesyesyes
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.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers with fine-grained authorization conceptyesAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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