DBMS > HBase vs. Informix vs. Kdb vs. OpenSearch vs. Quasardb

System Properties Comparison HBase vs. Informix vs. Kdb vs. OpenSearch vs. Quasardb

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Wide-column store based on Apache Hadoop and on concepts of BigTable

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

High performance Time Series DBMS

A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine forked from Elasticsearch and based on Apache Lucene

Distributed, high-performance timeseries database

Primary database model

Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Search engine

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Relational DBMS

Vector DBMS

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

Score	27.97
Rank	#26	Overall
	#2	Wide column stores

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	7.71
Rank	#49	Overall
	#2	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	16.03
Rank	#37	Overall
	#4	Search engines

Score	0.21
Rank	#322	Overall
	#29	Time Series DBMS

Website

hbase.apache.org

www.ibm.com/products/informix

kx.com

github.com/opensearch-project
opensearch.org

quasar.ai

Technical documentation

hbase.apache.org/book.html

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

code.kx.com

opensearch.org/docs/latest

doc.quasar.ai/master

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Powerset

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Amazon Web Services

quasardb

Initial release

2008

1984

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

2021

2009

Current release

2.3.4, January 2021

14.10.FC5, November 2020

3.6, May 2018

2.5.0, January 2023

3.14.1, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

free 32-bit version

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

commercial

Free community edition, Non-profit organizations and non-commercial usage are eligible for free licenses

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 OpenSearch: Fully managed open source search and analytics suite. Out-of-the-box integrations get you up and running in a couple of clicks.
STACKIT OpenSearch offers OpenSearch in a managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant, for a wide range of applications like analytics, website search, offering scalability and fast data access.

Implementation language

Java

C, C++ and Java

Java

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
Unix
Windows

using Cygwin

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free, schema definition possible

yes

schema-free

Flexible type definitions. Once a type is defined, it is persistent

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

options to bring your own types, AVRO

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

yes

integer and binary

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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

All search fields are automatically indexed

yes

with tags

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query language (q)

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

Java API
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

HTTP API

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Groovy
Java
PHP
Python
Scala

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Elasticsearch client

.Net
C
C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Coprocessors in Java

yes

user defined functions

yes

Triggers

yes

with views

yes

by using the 'percolation' feature

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

Sharding

consistent hashing

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

yes

Source-replica replication with selectable replication factor

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

similar paradigm used for internal processing

with Hadoop integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Synchronous doc based replication. Get by ID may show delays up to 1 sec. Configurable write consistency: one, quorum, all

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Single row ACID (across millions of columns)

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using LevelDB

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Transient mode

User concepts

Access control

Access Control Lists (ACL) for RBAC, integration with Apache Ranger for RBAC & ABAC

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

rights management via user accounts

Cryptographically strong user authentication and audit trail

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
» more

OpenSearch is a highly scalable and extensible open-source software suite for search,...
» more

Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
» more

Distributed as fully open source under Apache License, Version 2.0 (ALv2), OpenSearch...
» more

Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
» more

The OpenSearch platform is used across a broad range of search , analytics, and observability...
» more

Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
» more

Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

upon request
» more

The OpenSearch Project offers open source software licensed under Apache License...
» more

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.