DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. TimescaleDB vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. TimescaleDB vs. VoltDB

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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Document store

supported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

supported via specific SQL-layer

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	0.97
Rank	#191	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#28	Key-value stores
	#87	Relational DBMS

Score	807.76
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	4.06
Rank	#73	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Score	1.38
Rank	#156	Overall
	#72	Relational DBMS

Website

github.com/apple/foundationdb

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

www.timescale.com

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

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

docs.timescale.com

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

FoundationDB

Microsoft

Timescale

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2013

1989

2017

2010

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

2.15.0, May 2024

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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Implementation language

C++

Java, C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

some layers support typing

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data 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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

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

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

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

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

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Java

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

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

in SQL-layer only

yes

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

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