DBMS > Informix vs. Oracle NoSQL vs. PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. Oracle NoSQL vs. PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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 multi-model, scalable, distributed NoSQL database, designed to provide highly reliable, flexible, and available data management across a configurable set of storage nodes

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.

In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Document store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

RDF store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	3.05
Rank	#97	Overall
	#17	Document stores
	#16	Key-value stores
	#50	Relational DBMS

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	0.74
Rank	#222	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Score	1.36
Rank	#161	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/informix

www.oracle.com/database/nosql/technologies/nosql

www.postgresql.org

rdf4j.org

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

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

docs.oracle.com/en/database/other-databases/nosql-database/index.html

www.postgresql.org/docs

rdf4j.org/documentation

docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1

Developer

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.

Oracle

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.

Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

1984

2011

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2004

1998

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

24.1, May 2024

16.3, May 2024

11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

Proprietary for Enterprise Edition (Oracle Database EE license has Oracle NoSQL database EE covered: details)

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

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Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

Java

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Solaris SPARC/x86

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Support Fixed schema and Schema-less deployment with the ability to interoperate between them.

yes

RDF Schemas

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

optional

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
JSON API

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

RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

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

C
C#
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Java
PHP
Python

C
C++
Java
PL/SQL

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

yes

PL/SQL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Electable source-replica replication per shard. Support distributed global deployment with Multi-region table feature

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

depending on configuration

Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

configurable

ACID within a storage node (=shard)

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

off heap cache

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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