DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Google Cloud Datastore

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Google Cloud Datastore

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.

Description

Ordered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.

Automatically scaling NoSQL Database as a Service (DBaaS) on the Google Cloud Platform

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Document store

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

Score	0.89
Rank	#197	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#29	Key-value stores
	#92	Relational DBMS

Score	3.62
Rank	#71	Overall
	#12	Document stores

Website

github.com/apple/foundationdb

cloud.google.com/datastore

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

cloud.google.com/datastore/docs

Developer

FoundationDB

Google

Initial release

2013

2008

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

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.

Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

some layers support typing

yes, details here

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-like query language (GQL)

APIs and other access methods

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

using Google App Engine

Triggers

Callbacks using the Google Apps Engine

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Multi-source replication using Paxos

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on type of query and configuration

Strong Consistency is default for entity lookups and queries within an Entity Group (but can instead be made eventually consistent). Other queries are always eventual consistent.

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

via ReferenceProperties or Ancestor paths

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Serializable Isolation within Transactions, Read Committed outside of Transactions

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

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

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More resources

Recent citations in the news

Apple Acquires Durable Database Company FoundationDB
24 March 2015, TechCrunch

FoundationDB Record Layer: A Multi-Tenant Structured Datastore
25 July 2020, Apple Machine Learning Research

Apple-owned FoundationDB open sources the core technology at the heart of iCloud
19 April 2018, AppleInsider

FoundationDB team’s new venture, Antithesis, raises $47M to enhance software testing
13 February 2024, SiliconANGLE

Apple Acquires FoundationDB
24 March 2015, WSJ

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