DBMS > IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. Kdb vs. MariaDB

System Properties Comparison IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. Kdb vs. MariaDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

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

MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

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

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	7.55
Rank	#53	Overall
	#3	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.ibm.com/products/informix

kx.com

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

Technical documentation

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

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

code.kx.com

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

Developer

IBM

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

MariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server)

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Initial release

1983

host version

1984

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

Current release

12.1, October 2016

14.10.FC5, November 2020

3.6, May 2018

11.3.2, February 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free version is available

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

free 32-bit version

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

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.

Implementation language

C and C++

C, C++ and Java

C and C++

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

with proprietary extensions

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
JSON API

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

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

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

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

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Eiffel
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

Triggers

yes

with views

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

horizontal partitioning

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

not for in-memory storage engine

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

with MEMORY storage engine

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
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