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DBMS > IBM Db2 vs. IRONdb vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison IBM Db2 vs. IRONdb vs. PostgreSQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameIBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2  Xexclude from comparisonIRONdb  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparison
IRONdb seems to be discontinued. Therefore it is excluded from the DB-Engines Ranking.
DescriptionCommon in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/LinuxA distributed Time Series DBMS with a focus on scalability, fault tolerance and operational simplicityWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infoSince Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDBTime Series DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.
Secondary database modelsDocument store
RDF store infoin Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS infowith Db2 Spatial Extender
Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score126.40
Rank#8  Overall
#6  Relational DBMS
Score674.32
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Websitewww.ibm.com/­products/­db2www.circonus.com/solutions/time-series-database/www.postgresql.org
Technical documentationwww.ibm.com/­docs/­en/­db2docs.circonus.com/irondb/category/getting-startedwww.postgresql.org/­docs
DeveloperIBMCirconus LLC.PostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developer
Initial release1983 infohost version20171989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL
Current release12.1, October 2016V0.10.20, January 201816.4, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infofree version is availablecommercialOpen Source infoBSD
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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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 languageC and C++C and C++C
Server operating systemsAIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS
LinuxFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-freeyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infotext, numeric, histogramsyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.noyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesyesnoyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesSQL-like query language (Circonus Analytics Query Language: CAQL)yes infostandard with numerous extensions
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries infoMongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery
HTTP APIADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesC
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic
.Net
C
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyesyes, in Luauser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.
Triggersyesnoyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoonly with Windows/Unix/Linux VersionAutomatic, metric affinity per nodepartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes infowith separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)configurable replication factor, datacenter awareSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensions
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate consistency per node, eventual consistency across nodesImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesnoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardnofine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources
IBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2IRONdbPostgreSQL
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