DBMS > Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostgreSQL vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostgreSQL vs. VoltDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

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

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

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	29.85
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	645.05
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.46
Rank	#159	Overall
	#74	Relational DBMS

Website

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

www.postgresql.org

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Microsoft

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2014

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2010

Current release

16.2, February 2024

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

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.

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Implementation language

Java, C++

Server operating systems

hosted

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

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

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

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

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

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

user defined functions

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

Java

Triggers

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

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

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

More information provided by the system vendor

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.

Related products and services

3rd parties

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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
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Conferences, events and webinars

more DBMS events

Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor
Webinar, 10-11am CT / 4-5pm BST, 22 May 2024

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