DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP SQL Anywhere vs. ScyllaDB vs. Teradata Aster

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP SQL Anywhere vs. ScyllaDB vs. Teradata Aster

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

Teradata Aster has been integrated into other Teradata systems and therefore will be removed from the DB-Engines ranking.

Description

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

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

RDBMS database and synchronization technologies for server, desktop, remote office, and mobile environments

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Platform for big data analytics on multistructured data sources and types

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Key-value store

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	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	3.95
Rank	#80	Overall
	#42	Relational DBMS

Score	4.08
Rank	#76	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Website

github.com/apple/foundationdb

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sql-anywhere.html

www.scylladb.com

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

docs.scylladb.com

Developer

FoundationDB

Microsoft

SAP

formerly Sybase

ScyllaDB

Teradata

Initial release

2013

1989

1992

2015

2005

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

17, July 2015

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free

Flexible Schema (defined schema, partial schema, schema free)

defined schema within the relational store; partial schema or schema free in the Aster File Store

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

some layers support typing

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

in Aster File Store

Secondary indexes

yes

cluster global secondary indices

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

yes

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

C
C#
C++
Java
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

yes, in C/C++, Java, .Net or Perl

yes, Lua

R packages

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

yes

Dimension tables are replicated across all nodes in the cluster. The number of replicas for the file store can be configured.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

SQL Map-Reduce Framework

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

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.

yes

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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