DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. NebulaGraph vs. Postgres-XL vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. NebulaGraph vs. Postgres-XL vs. Snowflake

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

A distributed, linear scalable, high perfomant Graph DBMS

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

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	1.03
Rank	#190	Overall
	#31	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#89	Relational DBMS

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	2.14
Rank	#120	Overall
	#10	Graph DBMS

Score	0.49
Rank	#256	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Website

github.com/apple/foundationdb

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

github.com/vesoft-inc/nebula
www.nebula-graph.io

www.postgres-xl.org

www.snowflake.com

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.nebula-graph.io

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Vesoft Inc.

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2013

2014

2019

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

2014

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

10 R1, October 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0 + Common Clause 1.0

Open Source

Mozilla public license

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

Linux

Linux
macOS

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

schema-free

Strong typed schema

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

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

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

Nebula Graph internally uses the Key-Value store RocksDB for persistency. The vertices, edges, and their properties are stored as Key while their values are stored as Value. The primary indexes are per Key and secondary indexes are per Value.

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

SQL-like query language

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

yes

APIs and other access methods

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

Browser interface
console (shell)
Cypher Query Language
GO Object Graph Mapper
Java Object Graph Mapper
NGBatis

ORM framework for NebulaGraph and Spring-Boot
Proprietary native API
Python Object Graph Mapper
Query language nGQL

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

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

.Net
C++
Go
Java
PHP
Python

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

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

JavaScript

user defined functions

Triggers

JavaScript

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

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

Relationships in graphs

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

using RocksDB

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

Role-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

NebulaGraph is open source and free to use under Apache 2.0 license.
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