DBMS > IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. OpenSearch vs. QuestDB vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

System Properties Comparison IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. OpenSearch vs. QuestDB vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

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

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

A high performance open source SQL database for time series data

RDBMS database and synchronization technologies for server, desktop, remote office, and mobile environments

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

Search engine

Time Series 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

Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	125.90
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	16.03
Rank	#37	Overall
	#4	Search engines

Score	2.70
Rank	#105	Overall
	#8	Time Series DBMS

Score	3.95
Rank	#80	Overall
	#42	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.ibm.com/products/informix

github.com/opensearch-project
opensearch.org

questdb.io

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sql-anywhere.html

Technical documentation

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

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

opensearch.org/docs/latest

questdb.io/docs

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

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.

Amazon Web Services

QuestDB Technology Inc

SAP

formerly Sybase

Initial release

1983

host version

1984

2021

2014

1992

Current release

12.1, October 2016

14.10.FC5, November 2020

2.5.0, January 2023

17, July 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free version is available

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

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

C and C++

C, C++ and Java

Java

Java (Zero-GC), C++, Rust

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

Linux
macOS
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

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

yes

schema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocol

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

All search fields are automatically indexed

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query language

SQL with time-series 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

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

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

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Elasticsearch client

PostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust

over HTTP

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

yes, in C/C++, Java, .Net or Perl

Triggers

yes

by using the 'percolation' feature

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

horizontal partitioning (by timestamps)

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

Source-replica replication with eventual consistency

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

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

ACID

ACID for single-table writes

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

through memory mapped files

yes

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

Relational model with native time series support Column-based storage and time partitioned...
» more

Competitive advantages

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

High ingestion throughput: peak of 4M rows/sec (TSBS Benchmark) Code optimizations...
» more

Typical application scenarios

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

Financial tick data Industrial IoT Application Metrics Monitoring
» more

Key customers

Banks & Hedge funds, Yahoo, OKX, Airbus, Aquis Exchange, Net App, Cloudera, Airtel,...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

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

Open source Apache 2.0 QuestDB Enterprise QuestDB Cloud
» more

News

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23 May 2024

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8 May 2024

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6 May 2024

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