DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Postgres-XL vs. Realm vs. Sequoiadb vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Postgres-XL vs. Realm vs. Sequoiadb 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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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.

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

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

NewSQL database with distributed OLTP and SQL

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

Relational DBMS

Document store

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial 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	0.53
Rank	#254	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	7.41
Rank	#52	Overall
	#8	Document stores

Score	0.50
Rank	#258	Overall
	#41	Document stores
	#120	Relational DBMS

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Website

github.com/apple/foundationdb

Technical documentation

apple.github.io/foundationdb

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

realm.io/docs

www.sequoiadb.com/en/index.php?m=Files&a=index

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

Developer

FoundationDB

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Sequoiadb Ltd.

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Initial release

2013

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

2014

2013

2014

Current release

6.2.28, November 2020

10 R1, October 2018

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Mozilla public license

Open Source

Server: AGPL; Client: Apache V2

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

Linux
macOS

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

Linux

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

some layers support schemas

yes

schema-free

yes

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

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

some layers support typing

yes

oid, date, timestamp, binary, regex

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

SQL

Support of SQL

supported in specific SQL layer only

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

SQL-like query language

yes

APIs and other access methods

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

proprietary protocol using JSON

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift

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

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

.Net
C++
Java
PHP
Python

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in SQL-layer only

user defined functions

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

JavaScript

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Change Listeners

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

none

Sharding

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

none

Source-replica replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Linearizable consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual 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

MVCC

ACID

Document is locked during a transaction

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 realm

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

simple password-based access control

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

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