DBMS > PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J vs. Tarantool vs. Virtuoso

System Properties Comparison PostgreSQL vs. RDF4J vs. Tarantool vs. Virtuoso

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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 computing platform with a flexible data schema for efficiently building high-performance applications

Virtuoso is a multi-model hybrid-RDBMS that supports management of data represented as relational tables and/or property graphs

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

RDF store

Document store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Native XML DBMS
Relational DBMS
RDF store
Search engine

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

Spatial DBMS

with Tarantool/GIS extension

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	0.74
Rank	#222	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Score	1.67
Rank	#143	Overall
	#25	Document stores
	#25	Key-value stores
	#65	Relational DBMS

Score	4.27
Rank	#73	Overall
	#13	Document stores
	#4	Graph DBMS
	#2	Native XML DBMS
	#39	Relational DBMS
	#2	RDF stores
	#9	Search engines

Website

www.postgresql.org

rdf4j.org

www.tarantool.io

virtuoso.openlinksw.com

Technical documentation

www.postgresql.org/docs

rdf4j.org/documentation

www.tarantool.io/en/doc

docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso

Developer

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

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

OpenLink Software

Initial release

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2004

2008

1998

Current release

16.3, May 2024

2.10.0, May 2022

7.2.11, September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

Open Source

BSD-2, source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Tarantool Enterprise

Open Source

GPLv2, extended commercial license available

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.

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Implementation language

Java

C and C++

Server operating systems

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

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

BSD
Linux
macOS

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

RDF Schemas

Flexible data schema: relational definition for tables with ability to store json-like documents in columns

yes

SQL - Standard relational schema
RDF - Quad (S, P, O, G) or Triple (S, P, O)
XML - DTD, XML Schema
DAV - freeform filesystem objects, plus User Defined Types a/k/a Dynamic Extension Type

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, double, decimal, uuid, integer, blob, boolean, datetime

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard with numerous extensions

Full-featured ANSI SQL support

yes

SQL-92, SQL-200x, SQL-3, SQLX

APIs and other access methods

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

Open binary protocol

ADO.NET
GeoSPARQL
HTTP API
JDBC
Jena RDF API
ODBC
OLE DB
RDF4J API
RESTful HTTP API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SOAP webservices
SPARQL 1.1
WebDAV
XPath
XQuery
XSLT

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Java
PHP
Python

C
C#
C++
Erlang
Go
Java
JavaScript
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Rust

.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

yes

Lua, C and SQL stored procedures

yes

Virtuoso PL

Triggers

yes

yes, before/after data modification events, on replication events, client session events

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

none

Sharding, partitioned with virtual buckets by user defined affinity key. Live resharding for scale up and scale down without maintenance downtime.

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

none

Asynchronous replication with multi-master option
Configurable replication topology (full-mesh, chain, star)
Synchronous quorum replication (with Raft)

Chain, star, and bi-directional replication
Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Casual consistency across sharding partitions
Eventual consistency within replicaset partition

when using asyncronous replication
Immediate Consistency within single instance
Sequential consistency including linearizable read within replicaset partition

when using Raft

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

ACID, with serializable isolation and linearizable read (within partition); Configurable MVCC (within partition); No cross-shard distributed transactions

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

yes, cooperative multitasking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

yes, write ahead logging

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes, full featured in-memory storage engine with persistence

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access Control Lists
Mutual TLS authentication for Tarantol Enterprise
Password based authentication
Role-based access control (RBAC) and LDAP for Tarantol Enterprise
Users and Roles

Fine-grained Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) in addition to typical coarse-grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) according to SQL-standard. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Virtuoso is a modern multi-model RDBMS for managing data represented as tabular relations...
» more

Competitive advantages

Performance & Scale — as exemplified by DBpedia and the LOD Cloud it spawned, i.e.,...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Used for — Analytics/BI Conceptual Data Virtualization Enterprise Knowledge Graphs...
» more

Key customers

Broad use across enterprises and governments including — European Union (EU) US Government...
» more

Market metrics

Largest installed-base of Multi-Model RDBMS for AI-friendly Knowledge Graphs Platform...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Available in both Commercial Enterprise and Open Source (GPL v2) Editions Feature...
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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

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
» more

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

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

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

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Data processing speed and reliability: in-memory synchronous replication
9 November 2021, Vladimir Perepelytsya, Tarantool (sponsor)

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