DBMS > H2 vs. Oracle Berkeley DB vs. PostgreSQL vs. RRDtool vs. XTDB

System Properties Comparison H2 vs. Oracle Berkeley DB vs. PostgreSQL vs. RRDtool vs. XTDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Full-featured RDBMS with a small footprint, either embedded into a Java application or used as a database server.

Widely used in-process key-value store

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

Industry standard data logging and graphing tool for time series data. RRD is an acronym for round-robin database.

The data is stored in a circular buffer, thus the system storage footprint remains constant over time.

A general purpose database with bitemporal SQL and Datalog and graph queries

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

supports sorted and unsorted key sets
Native XML DBMS

in the Oracle Berkeley DB XML version

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Time Series DBMS

Document store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	8.33
Rank	#46	Overall
	#30	Relational DBMS

Score	2.01
Rank	#126	Overall
	#21	Key-value stores
	#3	Native XML DBMS

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.90
Rank	#132	Overall
	#11	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.18
Rank	#332	Overall
	#46	Document stores

Website

www.h2database.com

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/berkeleydb.html

www.postgresql.org

oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool

github.com/xtdb/xtdb
www.xtdb.com

Technical documentation

www.h2database.com/html/main.html

docs.oracle.com/cd/E17076_05/html/index.html

www.postgresql.org/docs

oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/doc

www.xtdb.com/docs

Developer

Thomas Mueller

Oracle

originally developed by Sleepycat, which was acquired by Oracle

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Tobias Oetiker

Juxt Ltd.

Initial release

2005

1994

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

1999

2019

Current release

2.2.220, July 2023

18.1.40, May 2020

16.3, May 2024

1.8.0, 2022

1.19, September 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

dual-licence (Mozilla public license, Eclipse public license)

Open Source

commercial license available

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

GPL V2 and FLOSS

Open Source

MIT License

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

Java

C, Java, C++ (depending on the Berkeley DB edition)

Implementations in Java (e.g. RRD4J) and C# available

Clojure

Server operating systems

All OS with a Java VM

AIX
Android
FreeBSD
iOS
Linux
OS X
Solaris
VxWorks
Windows

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

HP-UX
Linux

All OS with a Java 8 (and higher) VM
Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Numeric data only

yes, extensible-data-notation format

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

only with the Berkeley DB XML edition

yes

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Exporting into and restoring from XML files possible

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL interfaced based on SQLite is available

yes

standard with numerous extensions

limited SQL, making use of Apache Calcite

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

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

in-process shared library
Pipes

HTTP REST
JDBC

Supported programming languages

Java

.Net

Figaro is a .Net framework assembly that extends Berkeley DB XML into an embeddable database engine for .NET
others

Third-party libraries to manipulate Berkeley DB files are available for many languages
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)

3rd party binding
Perl
Python
Tcl

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

with librrd library
C#

with a different implementation of RRDTool
Java

with a different implementation of RRDTool
JavaScript (Node.js)

with a different implementation of RRDTool
Lua
Perl
PHP

with a wrapper library
Python
Ruby

Clojure
Java

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Java Stored Procedures and User-Defined Functions

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Triggers

yes

only for the SQL API

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

With clustering: 2 database servers on different computers operate on identical copies of a database

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

none

yes, each node contains all data

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes

by using the rrdcached daemon

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, flexibel persistency by using storage technologies like Apache Kafka, RocksDB or LMDB

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

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

3rd parties

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
» more

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Time Series DBMS are the database category with the fastest increase in popularity
4 July 2016, Matthias Gelbmann

Time Series DBMS as a new trend?
1 June 2015, Paul Andlinger

show all

Recent citations in the news

Margo Seltzer Named ACM Athena Lecturer for Technical and Mentoring Contributions
26 April 2023, Datanami

ACM recognizes far-reaching technical achievements with special awards
26 May 2021, EurekAlert

Oracle buys Sleepycat Software
14 February 2006, MarketWatch

Database Trends Report: SQL Beats NoSQL, MySQL Most Popular -- ADTmag
5 March 2019, ADT Magazine

Margo I. Seltzer | Berkman Klein Center
18 August 2020, Berkman Klein Center

provided by Google News

Build a FedRAMP compliant generative AI-powered chatbot using Amazon Aurora Machine Learning and Amazon ...
10 June 2024, AWS Blog

PostgreSQL Tutorial: Definition, Commands, & Features
4 June 2024, Simplilearn

How To Schedule PostgreSQL Backups With GitHub Actions
6 June 2024, The New Stack

Raise the bar on AI-powered app development with Azure Database for PostgreSQL
5 June 2024, Microsoft

How to implement a better like, views, comment counters in PostgreSQL?
28 May 2024, SitePoint

provided by Google News

SQLi vulnerability in Cacti could lead to RCE (CVE-2023-51448)
9 January 2024, Help Net Security

Critical IP spoofing bug patched in Cacti
15 December 2022, The Daily Swig

How to install Cacti SNMP Monitor on Ubuntu
24 November 2017, TechRepublic

The 16 Best Open Source Network Monitoring Tools in 2023
21 October 2022, Solutions Review

Graph Your Network with Cacti
1 January 2009, Open Source For You

provided by Google News

Share this page