DBMS > Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Snowflake vs. TimescaleDB vs. VelocityDB vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Snowflake vs. TimescaleDB vs. VelocityDB vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

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

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

A .NET Object Database that can be embedded/distributed and extended to a graph data model (VelocityGraph)

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Graph DBMS
Object oriented DBMS

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	121.33
Rank	#9	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	4.64
Rank	#71	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.05
Rank	#358	Overall
	#36	Graph DBMS
	#16	Object oriented DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

Technical documentation

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

docs.timescale.com

velocitydb.com/UserGuide

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Microsoft

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Timescale

VelocityDB Inc

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2014

2017

2011

2005

Current release

2.15.0, May 2024

7.x

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

Any that supports .NET

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

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

yes

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data 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

Secondary indexes

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

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

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

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

.Net

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

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

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

.Net

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

user defined functions

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

JavaScript

similar concept for controling cloud resources

yes

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Bi-directional Spark integration

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

Transaction concepts

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

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Based on Windows Authentication

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Key customers

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Licensing and pricing models

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