DBMS > InterSystems IRIS vs. Lovefield vs. Snowflake vs. STSdb vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison InterSystems IRIS vs. Lovefield vs. Snowflake vs. STSdb vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A containerised multi-model DBMS, interoperability and analytics data platform with wide capabilities for vertical and horizontal scalability

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Key-Value Store with special method for indexing

optimized for high performance using a special indexing method

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Document store
Key-value store
Object oriented DBMS
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Vector DBMS

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

Score	4.05
Rank	#83	Overall
	#14	Document stores
	#10	Key-value stores
	#1	Object oriented DBMS
	#45	Relational DBMS

Score	0.29
Rank	#293	Overall
	#133	Relational DBMS

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	0.04
Rank	#360	Overall
	#52	Key-value stores

Score	1.73
Rank	#143	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

www.intersystems.com/products/intersystems-iris

google.github.io/lovefield

www.snowflake.com

github.com/STSSoft/STSdb4

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

InterSystems

Google

Snowflake Computing Inc.

STS Soft SC

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2018

2014

2011

2019

Current release

2023.3, June 2023

2.1.12, February 2017

4.0.8, September 2015

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Open Source

GPLv2, commercial license available

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

JavaScript

Server operating systems

AIX
Linux
macOS
Ubuntu
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

hosted

Windows

Data scheme

depending on used data model

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

yes

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

primitive types and user defined types (classes)

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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 data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

yes

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

.NET Client API

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

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

JavaScript

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C#
Java

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Using read-only observers

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

yes

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

none

yes

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

yes

User concepts

Access control

yes

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

InterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform which includes a multi-model...
» more

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
» more

Competitive advantages

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
» more

Typical application scenarios

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
» more

Key customers

All companies that have data.
» more

Market metrics

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.