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

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

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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

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.

A distributed, high available RDBMS compatible with Oracle and MySQL

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

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

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Wide column store

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	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	1.66
Rank	#147	Overall
	#68	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.ibm.com/products/informix

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

en.oceanbase.com

Technical documentation

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

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

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

en.oceanbase.com/docs/oceanbase-database

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.

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

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

OceanBase

previously Alibaba and Ant Group

Initial release

1983

host version

1984

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

2010

Current release

12.1, October 2016

14.10.FC5, November 2020

11.3.2, February 2024

4.3.0, April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free version is available

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

Open Source

Commercial license 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++

C++

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)
Proprietary native API
Table 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

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

Ada

in MySQL-compatible model
C

in Oracle- and MySQL- compatible models
C++

in Oracle- and MySQL- compatible models
D

in MySQL-compatible model
Delphi

in MySQL-compatible model
Eiffel

in MySQL-compatible model
Erlang

in MySQL-compatible model
Haskell

in MySQL-compatible model
Java

in Oracle- and MySQL- compatible models
JavaScript (Node.js)

in MySQL-compatible model
Objective-C

in MySQL-compatible model
OCaml

in MySQL-compatible model
Perl

in MySQL-compatible model
PHP

in MySQL-compatible model
Python

in MySQL-compatible model
Ruby

in MySQL-compatible model
Scheme

in MySQL-compatible model
Tcl

in MySQL-compatible model

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

PL/SQL in oracle-compatible mode, MySQL Stored Procedure in mysql-compatible mode

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

horizontal partitioning (by hash, key, range, range columns, list, and list columns)

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication using Paxos

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

not for in-memory storage engine

yes

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users, groups and roles according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

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