IBM Cloudant vs. InterSystems IRIS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Cloudant is an open source non-relational, distributed database service that requires zero-configuration. It's based on the Apache-backed CouchDB project and the creator of the open source BigCouch project. Cloudant's service provides integrated data management, search, and analytics engine designed for web applications. Cloudant scales your database on the CouchDB framework and provides hosting, administrative tools, analytics and commercial support for CouchDB and BigCouch. Cloudant is often…
$1
per month per GB of storage above the included 20 GB
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
InterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform that includes a multi-model transactional data management engine, an application development platform, and interoperability engine, and an open analytics platform. It is is the next generation of InterSystems' data management software. It includes…N/A
Pricing
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
Editions & Modules
Standard
$1
per month per GB of storage above the included 20 GB
Standard
$75
per month 100 reads/second ; 50 writes/second ; 5 global queries/second
Lite
Free
20 reads/second ; 10 writes/second ; 5 global queries / second ; 1 GB of storage capacity
Standard
Included
per month 20 GB of storage
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
Considered Both Products
IBM Cloudant
Chose IBM Cloudant
IBM cloudant documentation is very easy to understand and because of that the implementation is also very easy. We found some difficulties in case of aws documents implementation. Performance of the cloudant database is also high as compare to the other databases. Indexing and …
Chose IBM Cloudant
I like [the] ease of use of Cloudant. Redis and Fauna have time to live features so for caching and temp data that is what I use along with messaging queues.
Chose IBM Cloudant
MongoDB Atlas and Azure Cosmos DB are the closest competitors we found with Cloudant, especially in terms of fixed pricing and having a GUI for easy viewing and quick edits of data. Cloudant's pricing model flat out beats MongoDB Atlas' in terms of how easy it would be to …
Chose IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant is great for quick deployment and configs of a database service, especially when it comes to rapid prototyping. In a research capacity, we need to spin up web services and run experiments quickly. IBM Cloudant is a fuss-free database service [that] aids in this …
Chose IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant wins in all aspects, from cost, ease of deployment, features, global availability and much more.
Chose IBM Cloudant
The gap that we wanted to cover was to deploy a self-managed CouchDB environment, which would allow us the bidirectional replication of Databases through several physical locations of the same client. IBM Cloudant was the best choice after evaluating some other platforms with …
Chose IBM Cloudant
MS SQl is more specific to relational data. Overall, it is more mature with a more feature-filled interface, user access management, and tools to manage data.
Chose IBM Cloudant
None, since we are a dedicated IBM Gold Business Partner as well as a respected IBM development and design partner, we stick with IBM products.
Chose IBM Cloudant
The feature-set, including security, is very comparable. Overall, IBM's services added to the product are mature and stable, although product support and engineers could be a little better. Global availability is improving, and Disaster Recover Capabilities are great. Overall, …
Chose IBM Cloudant
In our case, it was a no-brainer since we were using IBM Cloud. In comparison to DB2 the ease of use and JSON support was the key.
Chose IBM Cloudant
As its documentation and help are always available, it's easier to manage than any other database mentioned.
Chose IBM Cloudant
As I mentioned Redis was the first option for this implementation, IBM Cloudant excels the data center sync.
Chose IBM Cloudant
I have mainly used Cloudant as I work with IBM Cloud in my role and therefore it was easiest (and cheapest) to set up for the small scale prototypes we are building. (Which do however sometimes lead to scaled implementation)
Chose IBM Cloudant
In our case it was a no-brainer since we were using IBM Cloud. In comparison to DB2 the ease of use and JSON support was the key.
Chose IBM Cloudant
Infinitely better in every part. Except handling SQL
Chose IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant DB is backed by CouchDB and that too hosted on IBM Cloud is the key. Concurrency and durability is the key here. In-memory capabilities are non-existent on the IBM Cloudant DB.
Chose IBM Cloudant
We chose Cloudant because it was fully managed and used in the marketplace, unlike MongoDB was at the time, and it supported JSON which SQL Server 2016 didn't.
Chose IBM Cloudant
It's easier to use than Dynamo, more open than Firebase, and has better documentation that CouchDB... it might not be fair to compare Modulus, Modulus obviously suffers from some scalability issues and might not be in the same class... but its a hosted DB service we had some …
Chose IBM Cloudant
All other NoSQL document-centric DB must be installed on premise on in the cloud as complicated clusters. The "as a service" formula and the open source origin were the same reasons for Cloudant choice, freeing us of all system and administration tasks!
Chose IBM Cloudant
Cloudant is a database as a service with a strong support team. The feature set is comparable to other solutions but not all are managed services, or have easy scalability, or can demonstrate production level reliability and performance.
Chose IBM Cloudant
We used to host CouchDB ourselves, but moved to BigCouch at first for scalability and then to Cloudant to reduce the maintenance overheads.
We use Elasticsearch alongside Cloudant these days, since _changes streams make it easy to feed data from Cloudant into Elasticsearch. …
Chose IBM Cloudant
Cloudant blows all of the other competitors out of the water. The robust UI, the scalability, the management console, these are all reasons why Cloudant is a superior product to any of these "competitors". Cloudant is head and shoulders above the rest. It was a pleasure to …
Chose IBM Cloudant
I've even worked with Cassandra, but I found Cloudant to be much simpler, easier, neat and efficient. Cassandra was not highly scalable but Cloudant was much efficient in it. Even the Monitoring and other scripts were pre-built which made it much time efficient for us.
Chose IBM Cloudant
I chose Cloudant because they had the best low end traffic prices while still providing room for pay as you need it scalability. I had an Amazon EC2 instance for a few years and I had to pay so much for it even though it hardly had any traffic. Being connected to IBM helped me …
InterSystems IRIS
Chose InterSystems IRIS
Better integration of Intersystems solution
Better performances
Better support ofr developers
Chose InterSystems IRIS
Tibco was not originally planned to be used for HL7 Integrations and as such we had to create some very complicated processes in order for the messages to parse and validate appropriately. It was simply not built for this type of interoperability. Comparatively, InterSystems …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
My organizations use InterSystems IRIS and i think is a good bet.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
The database, integration engine, and load balancer are all in one place. This is advantageous because 1) there are no hidden costs and it is also far easier to set up the network configuration. 2) The sales engineers are very willing to help in any situation and they are also …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
This have best database management and security provider future

Time saving for complex database management
Chose InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS includes a wide array and assortment of otherwise stand-alone solutions. Having a single platform to support database interoperability, storage, and analytics, let alone Security and SQL tools is a great advantage over solutions that tackle a single aspect of …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
The best software on the market, the capacity for analysis, storage and security in the handling and storage of data, provides you with the certainty of increasing efficiency in all organizational processes, ensuring that you will have your information available at all times, …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
We are using InterSystems IRIS [especially] for database operations as the query performance is really good for [a large] amount of customer data. You can easily integrate for any application like web, desktop, and many more. It also provides BI functionality which is also very …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
Because [it's] a very powerful and efficient tool that has the ability to manage your data in a quick and reliable manner. It's easy to use especially if you work in the area of managing a large number of databases or simply need an extra hand. Inter Systems IRIS can provide …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
The process of migration and scaling due to heavy lifting is also easier, the speed of performance of IRIS is good and fast were able to get a high increase in query performance after our switch and [immense] amount of features integrated with the solution, from the web …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS is more efficient than other applications therefore, it is preferred over the others. Moreover, it is more cost-effective than other applications like Microsoft SQL Server, therefore, many organizations such as small businesses can afford it. Lastly, …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
You definitely need to use it for a fast, solution-oriented experience.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS has the flexibility and power to be more than just a databse engine. We are able to create our business processes and interface with out javascript front end. SQL Server has been useful through the Entity framework connecting both together has been the …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
New docker system is really good, performance improves at the cost of some breaking changes.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
I have always studied other databases, I cannot say if it is a problem for Brazilian colleges, however, after meeting IRIS / Caché, my concept of databases has changed. A much more robust and faster bank.
Now that I have had the opportunity to work with this database, there is …
Chose InterSystems IRIS
The only comparison I can make is that they are all database tools. I strongly believe that just the fact that IRIS is not so widespread and easy to find in research forums is the reason why it is not so "famous". The tool meets and meets all needs for any situation.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS is the union of the best parts of Caché and Ensemble, with a lot of new implementations and some enhancements. IRIS have the same multidimensional database estruture as like Caché and works as an Integration tool like Ensemble.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
We did not consider alternatives; implemented InterSystems IRIS based on a corporate reference.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
Did not consider alternatives; we opted for the free trial and then decided to move ahead with a long-term plan with InterSystems IRIS.
Chose InterSystems IRIS
Did not try other alternatives
Chose InterSystems IRIS
They shared a set of limits:
- speed
- exhaustive memory consumption
Features
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cloudant
9.1
Ratings
6% above category average
InterSystems IRIS
-
Ratings
Performance9.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Concurrency9.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Security8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data model flexibility9.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
Small Businesses
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.1 out of 10
Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.1 out of 10
Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.1 out of 10
SAP IQ
SAP IQ
Score 6.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM CloudantInterSystems IRIS
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cloudant is the best implementation of CouchDB, or any NoSQL database that you could use if you are looking for a database that can handle extremely rapid writes to a database without having to worry about transactional integrity. IBM Cloudant also abstracts out CouchDB's replication/multi-node requirements and ensures high availability on its own. It also allows map-reduce based indexing which will allow massive databases to be aggregated and queried very quickly. It should not be used in cases where you require structured data which is organized according to a schema, or if you want to maintain ACID database properties.
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It is best suited in the scenario where a single interface is required for providing [a complete end-to-end] solution to the customers. You don't need [a] separate platform to write code or [perform] database operations. All you need is InterSystems IRIS software and you are done. You can also use analytics functionality which is one of the greatest [features] which many customers need for their solution[.]
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Pros
  • We had a small data mart project that required the storage of some rather highly connected data that also had a relatively small footprint. This made IBM Cloudant an obvious choice because we could store the data in a data structure that met our project need al while using a platform that our web development team understood and was comfortable with.
  • We had a bunch of geospatial data that we needed for analysis. Having GeoJSON being natively supported by Cloudant made it an easy choice.
  • Cloudant was cloud-based and didn't require a DBA support it, this allowed the project to move ahead without pushback from the infrastructure team.
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  • Connecting with mutliple vendor platforms and systems allowing us to consume and provide data as needed.
  • Allowed us to implement our own RESTful api engine to server data to our internal applications.
  • Setting up their recommendations for high availability allow us to perform server maintenance with minimal down time to our users.
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Cons
  • To have a sort of LUW - Logical Unit Work when many documents are involved into a single update process. The changing of one document is related to its status information but it must be synchronized with all the other documents involved in the process.
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  • Enhanced documentation, more comprehensive and user-friendly documentation, including detailed tutorials and examples
  • Improving compatibility and integrations with others programming languages
  • Introducing tools and techniques to optimize the performance of ObjectScript applications, such as profiling tools, performance monitoring utilities, and code optimization guidelines
  • A better compatibility with Python libraries
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Likelihood to Renew
the flexibility of NoSQL allow us to modify and upgrade our apps very fast and in a convenient way. Having the solution hosted by IBM is also giving us the chance to focus on features and the improvement of our apps. It's one thing less to be worried about
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No answers on this topic
Usability
It's mostly just a straight forward API to a data store. I knock one off for the full text search thing, but I don't need it much anyways. Also, the dashboard UI they give is pretty nice to use. It provides syntax-highlighting for writing views and queries are easy to test. I wish other DBs had a UI like this.
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The interface is very intuitive, the documentation is very good so it is not complicated to operate.
The security is complex, but you can create a special role to access and the user ONLY can operate with the part that it allows.
Also, you can examine the data very quick with the SQL Browser integrated.
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Reliability and Availability
it is a highly available solution in the IBM cloud portfolio and hence we have never had any issues with the data base being available - we also do continuous replication to be on the safer side just in case some thing goes awry. We also perform twice a year disaster recovery tests.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
very easy to get started and is very developer friendly given that it uses couchDB analytics. It is a cloud based solution and hence there is no hardware investment in a server and staging the server to get started and the associated delays/bureaucracy involved to get started. Good documentation is also available.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Very happy by the commitment given by the team which has been really good over the last 7 years of usage.
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The InterSystems WRC has always been helpful and responsive. The folks I have spoken with are always understanding of our needs and questions and regardless of if the question is simple or complex we are always met with the same professionalism and helpfulness every time. I have no hesitations contacting InterSystems for help!
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Online Training
online resources are good enough to understand but there is nothing like testing. In our case, we discovered some not documented behavior that we take in count now. Also, the experience in NodeJs is critical. Also, take in count that most of the "good practices" with cloudant are not in online courses but in blogs and pages from independent developers
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
  • Test the architecture on CouchDB helped us to address initial design flaws.
  • The migration to Cloudant as such was very painless.
  • We have migrate our replication system to Cloudant Android Sync for mobile devices.
  • We have regular informal contact with the Cloudant leadership to discuss our use cases and implementation strategies.
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Will done based on a proper planning, so this will makes execution more easier and better.
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Alternatives Considered
MongoDB Atlas and Azure Cosmos DB are the closest competitors we found with Cloudant, especially in terms of fixed pricing and having a GUI for easy viewing and quick edits of data. Cloudant's pricing model flat out beats MongoDB Atlas' in terms of how easy it would be to predict costs. Cosmos DB is a much closer competitor, as it integrates well with Azure's stack similarly to Cloudant and the rest of the IBM Cloud stack; similar [throughout]-based pricing and replication options; and even the GUI and ease of query using SQL, which my team and I were more familiar with. Where Cloudant beats out Cosmos DB is again having a more simple pricing model (ops/sec vs Cosmos' "request units" voodoo) and being based on open-source software assuaging fears of vendor lock-in.
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Tibco was not originally planned to be used for HL7 Integrations and as such we had to create some very complicated processes in order for the messages to parse and validate appropriately. It was simply not built for this type of interoperability. Comparatively, InterSystems IRIS for Health (HealthConnect) has out of the box HL7 features that would parse messages, offer a variety of validation options, simplified data lookups and transformation and reduced the amount of time it took to develop connections with out vendor systems. InterSystems IRIS also allows one to push just single files into production at a time so there is less of a chance of us pushing something that should not be in production yet as our previous system was set up to with TIBCO deployments
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Scalability
The service scales incredibly well. As you would expect from CloudDB and IBM combination. The only reason I wouldn't score it a 10 is the fact that document trees can get nested and nested very quickly if you are attempting to do very complex datasets. Which makes your code that much more complex to deal. Its very possible we could find a solution to this problem with better database planning to begin with, but one of the reasons we chose a service over a self-hosted solution was so we could set it up quick and forget about it. So we weren't going to dedicate a team to architecture optimization.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Saving in-terms of cost of procuring and maintaining hardware, which will be realized over the next 5 years.
  • Positive ROI in terms of the number of FTEs involved in maintaining our databases; our DBAs can now focus on other important and business critical applications.
  • Best ROI in terms of our organization's vision - they are no longer anxious / nervous to move to the cloud. We are already on the CLOUD.
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  • Very Fast and scalable software to deal with big data flow, safe and robust.
  • The studio IDE is quite old fashion and lacks a few facilities
  • amazing for complex data consumption, its milyi-model capability wich allows multiple different models for a single set of codes.
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ScreenShots