DBMS > mSQL vs. Redis vs. Sphinx vs. TerminusDB vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison mSQL vs. Redis vs. Sphinx vs. TerminusDB vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

mSQL (Mini SQL) is a simple and lightweight RDBMS

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.

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

Scalable Graph Database platform making enterprise data available by exploiting inferred entities and relationships

In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

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

Search engine

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

Document store
RDF store

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

Score	1.27
Rank	#169	Overall
	#76	Relational DBMS

Score	155.94
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	5.95
Rank	#55	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Score	0.23
Rank	#316	Overall
	#27	Graph DBMS

Score	1.36
Rank	#161	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Website

hughestech.com.au/products/msql

redis.com
redis.io

sphinxsearch.com

terminusdb.com

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

Technical documentation

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

sphinxsearch.com/docs

terminusdb.github.io/terminusdb/#

docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1

Developer

Hughes Technologies

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

DataChemist Ltd.

Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

Initial release

1994

2009

2001

2018

1998

Current release

4.4, October 2021

7.2.5, May 2024

3.5.1, February 2023

11.0.0, January 2023

11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free licenses can be provided

Open Source

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

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence available

Open Source

GPL V3

commercial

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.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C++

Prolog, Rust

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

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

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

yes

full-text index on all search fields

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

A subset of ANSI SQL is implemented

no subqueries, aggregate functions, views, foreign keys, triggers

with RediSQL module

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

SQL-like query language (WOQL)

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Proprietary protocol

OWL
RESTful HTTP API
WOQL (Web Object Query Language)

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

C
C++
Delphi
Java
Perl
PHP
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

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

JavaScript
Python

C
C++
Java
PL/SQL

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes

PL/SQL

Triggers

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

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

Sharding

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

Graph Partitioning

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

none

Journaling Streams

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

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

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

yes

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

yes

in-memory journaling

yes

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

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 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

Role-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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