DBMS > PostgreSQL vs. Redis vs. RRDtool

System Properties Comparison PostgreSQL vs. Redis vs. RRDtool

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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

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Industry standard data logging and graphing tool for time series data. RRD is an acronym for round-robin database.

The data is stored in a circular buffer, thus the system storage footprint remains constant over time.

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.

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	674.32
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	152.19
Rank	#7	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	1.58
Rank	#138	Overall
	#11	Time Series DBMS

Website

www.postgresql.org

redis.com
redis.io

oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool

Technical documentation

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/doc

Developer

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Tobias Oetiker

Initial release

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2009

1999

Current release

16.4, August 2024

7.2.5, May 2024

1.8.0, 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

Open Source

GPL V2 and FLOSS

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.

PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

Implementations in Java (e.g. RRD4J) and C# available

Server operating systems

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

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

HP-UX
Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

Numeric data only

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.

Exporting into and restoring from XML files possible

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard with numerous extensions

with RediSQL module

APIs and other access methods

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

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

in-process shared library
Pipes

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

with librrd library
C#

with a different implementation of RRDTool
Java

with a different implementation of RRDTool
JavaScript (Node.js)

with a different implementation of RRDTool
Lua
Perl
PHP

with a wrapper library
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

none

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

by using the rrdcached daemon

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

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