List of Databases’ Implementations

This is a small, hand-maintained, list of various database implementations.

• Berkeley DB - an open-source (formerly SleepyCat licence - now AGPLv3, which is a strong copyleft licence) database that provides a binary-string-based key/value store. Now a product of Oracle Corporation.

• LevelDB - an open-source (BSD-style), filesystem-based key/value store by Google. Reportedly unreliable.

• Tokyo Cabinet and Kyoto Cabinet - open-source (LGPLed and GPLed) key/value stores.

• Sophia - a “modern embeddable transactional key-value storage” under the open source and permissive 2-clause BSD licence.

• xBase - a standard for dBase-compatible database implementations, which store tables on the filesystem.

• “NoSQL” - a “fast, portable, relational database management system without arbitrary limits, (other than memory and processor speed) that runs under, and interacts with, the UNIX Operating System. ” (Not to be confused with the so-called “NoSQL” crop of distributed databases).

• SQLite - an open-source (= Public Domain source code) SQL database-in-the-local-filesystem. Popular and widely used.

• Microsoft Jet Database Engine - a proprietary and MS-Windows-specific SQL engine by Microsoft. Old and reportedly not very reliable.

• solidDB - a memory-based or filesystem-based SQL-database. Proprietary.

• PostgreSQL - an open-source (permissive, GPL-compatible licence), feature-rich and cross-platform database

• MySQL - a GPLed client/server database. Has some active forks such as MariaDB (which provides LGPLed client libraries), Drizzle (= a “smaller, slimmer and (hopefully) faster version of MySQL”), and WebScaleSQL.

• Firebird - an open source SQL database server originally forked from Borland InterBase.

• Ingres - an open source (GPLed) database server based on the original “Ingres” research project code.

• Oracle Database - a proprietary SQL server for some platforms by Oracle Corporation.

• Microsoft SQL Server (also known as “MS-SQL” or just as “SQL Server”) - a proprietary SQL server by Microsoft, for Windows and some versions of Linux, originally derived from Sybase SQL Server.

• IBM Informix - a proprietary and cross-platform database server - originally by Informix Corporation, now by IBM.

• IBM DB2 - a proprietary and cross-platform SQL database server by IBM.

• Sybase SQL Server - a line of proprietary SQL server products by Sybase.

• ADABAS - a proprietary and cross-platform database server that runs on IBM mainframes, several variants of UNIX (including Linux) and on Microsoft Windows, that supports several types of interfaces (including SQL). By Software AG.

• Sqream - a proprietary GPU-accelerated SQL database.

• MaxDB - a freeware, proprietary, and cross-platform, database from SAP Corporation, that was available as open source software for some years.

• BaseX - an open-source (BSD-style licence) and cross-platform client/server XML database written in Java, with a RESTful API for other languages.

• Berkeley DB XML Edition (“dbxml”) - an AGPLv3 local-storage XML database based on Berkeley DB and other technologies.

• db4o - an open-source (GPL and other licences) and embeddable object database for Java and .NET.

• ObjectDB - a proprietary and cross-platform object database written in Java.

• Apache Cassandra - an open-source (Apache licence) distributed database written in Java.

  • Scylla DB - a rewrite (and drop-in replacement) of Apache Cassandra in C++, which is licensed under the AGPLv3, and which is claimed to be more performant.

• MongoDB - a source-available and cross-platform distributed document-oriented database. The code used to be under AGPLv3, but was changed to a more restrictive licence, which was not approved as open source or free software. Drivers are Apache licensed.

  • Meir Kriheli’s MongoDB talk.

• CouchDB - an open source (Apache licensed) document-oriented database written in Erlang.

• Redis - a distributed, in-memory, open source (BSD licensed) and cross-platform, data structure server.

• Oracle NoSQL Database - a distributed key/value store by Oracle Corporation available under the AGPL licence and a proprietary licence.

• Database Services for Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) - Hosted solutions for AWS (proprietary with open source APIs).

• ”NoSQL Database Management Systems” - a comprehensive list.

• List of Text Processing Tools.

• “Linux SQL Databases and Tools” - a list by Linas Vepstas with many links.

This document is Copyright by Shlomi Fish, 2015, and is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-by) 3.0 Unported (or at your option any later version of that licence).

For securing additional rights, please contact Shlomi Fish and see the explicit requirements that are being spelt from abiding by that licence.