DBMS > Firebird vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. Machbase Neo vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison Firebird vs. IBM Db2 vs. jBASE vs. Machbase Neo vs. PostgreSQL

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

A robust multi-value DBMS comprising development tools and middleware

TimeSeries DBMS for AIoT and BigData

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Multivalue DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Secondary database models

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	20.50
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	125.90
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	1.49
Rank	#156	Overall
	#3	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.17
Rank	#337	Overall
	#30	Time Series DBMS

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Website

www.firebirdsql.org

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.rocketsoftware.com/products/rocket-multivalue-application-development-platform/rocket-jbase

machbase.com

www.postgresql.org

Technical documentation

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

docs.rocketsoftware.com/bundle?labelkey=jbase_5.9

machbase.com/dbms

www.postgresql.org/docs

Developer

Firebird Foundation

IBM

Rocket Software (formerly Zumasys)

Machbase

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Initial release

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

1983

host version

1991

2013

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

12.1, October 2016

5.7

V8.0, August 2023

16.3, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

commercial

free version is available

commercial

free test version available

Open Source

BSD

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

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Implementation language

C and C++

Server operating systems

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
Linux
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

optional

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Embedded SQL for jBASE in BASIC

SQL-like query language

yes

standard with numerous extensions

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
SOAP-based API

gRPC
HTTP REST
JDBC
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net
Basic
Jabbascript
Java

C
C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript
PHP

via ODBC
Python
R

via ODBC
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

PSQL

yes

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

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.

yes

volatile and lookup table

User concepts

Access control

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

simple password-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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