DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Graph Engine vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Postgres-XL vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Graph Engine vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Postgres-XL vs. Vertica

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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.

A distributed in-memory data processing engine, underpinned by a strongly-typed RAM store and a general distributed computation engine

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	1.06
Rank	#185	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#85	Relational DBMS

Score	0.67
Rank	#232	Overall
	#21	Graph DBMS
	#34	Key-value stores

Score	27.71
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	0.53
Rank	#254	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	10.06
Rank	#42	Overall
	#26	Relational DBMS

Website

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.graphengine.io

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

www.postgres-xl.org

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

www.graphengine.io/docs/manual

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

FoundationDB

Microsoft

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2013

2010

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

2005

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

10 R1, October 2018

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

MIT License

commercial

Open Source

Mozilla public license

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C++

.NET and C

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

.NET

hosted

Linux
macOS

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free

yes

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

some layers support typing

yes

JSON types

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

XML type, but no XML query functionality

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-like query language

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

C#
C++
F#
Visual Basic

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

yes

JavaScript

user defined functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

JavaScript

yes

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

horizontal partitioning

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Linearizable consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

MVCC

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional: either by committing a write-ahead log (WAL) to the local persistent storage or by dumping the memory to a persistent storage

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

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

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Licensing and pricing models

Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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