whichdb

ConfluxDB

discontinued

by University of Waterloo · since 2014

Waterloo research prototype giving global snapshot isolation to partitioned, multi-master PostgreSQL.

relationalresearch prototypeproprietarylegacy
Website Compare Find similar

discontinued. Academic prototype described in PVLDB vol. 7 (2014); no public release.

Overview

ConfluxDB is a research prototype by Prima Chairunnanda, Khuzaima Daudjee and M. Tamer Özsu at the University of Waterloo, published in PVLDB in 2014. It targets a specific gap: providing snapshot isolation across a database that is partitioned over several primary sites that all accept updates, without restricting a transaction to one site or partitioning the workload in advance, while also letting read replicas see globally consistent snapshots. Distributed update transactions commit with two-phase commit while ConfluxDB determines a global order for them, and a log-merging replication scheme combines the primaries' update streams into a single stream consistent with that order, which every replica applies. The prototype was built on PostgreSQL; no public code release is known.

Transactional apps (OLTP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +Global snapshot isolation across several update-accepting partitions
  • +Log-merging replication gives replicas SI-consistent snapshots without a single-master bottleneck
  • +Builds on stock PostgreSQL concurrency control

Trade-offs

  • −Research prototype with no public code
  • −Distributed updates still pay for two-phase commit

Great for

  • +Studying replication protocols for snapshot isolation
  • +Background for multi-master partitioned database research

Think twice for

  • −Any production use

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 4 of 25 tracked

✓Transactions
✓Joins
✓Secondary indexes
✓Durable persistence
–Full-text search
–Vector search
–Geospatial
–JSON
–Change data capture
–Triggers
–Stored procedures
–Materialized views
–TTL / expiry
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Compression
–Encryption at rest
–Role-based access
–Time travel
–Branching
–Online schema changes
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Small · ≤ 100 GB
Horizontal scaling
Native
Multi-region
No
Transactions
Full ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Strict
Architecture
Distributed, Multi primary
Query languages
SQL

Partitioned primaries plus replicas fed by a merged, SI-ordered update log.

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

Ecosystem

compatible withPostgreSQL
apis & protocolsPostgreSQL wire protocol

Alternatives to ConfluxDB

Compare all→
PostgreSQLRelational93.2

The extensible, standards-first open-source relational database.

confluxdb vs postgresql →
CockroachDBRelational47.1

Postgres-wire distributed SQL built to survive node, zone and region failures with serializable transactions.

confluxdb vs cockroachdb →
YugabyteDBRelational32.7

Apache-licensed distributed SQL that reuses the PostgreSQL query layer on a Raft-replicated storage engine.

confluxdb vs yugabytedb →
CitusRelational21.1

Postgres extension that shards tables across nodes for multi-tenant SaaS and real-time analytics.

confluxdb vs citus →
Progress OpenEdgeRelational20.4

Integrated RDBMS plus ABL 4GL application platform behind thousands of ERP and vertical business apps.

confluxdb vs progress-openedge →
MultigresRelational12.4

Alpha-stage, Vitess-inspired sharding, pooling and HA layer for unmodified PostgreSQL, led by Supabase.

confluxdb vs multigres →

ConfluxDB FAQ

What is ConfluxDB?

ConfluxDB is a relational database by University of Waterloo, first released in 2014. ConfluxDB is a research prototype by Prima Chairunnanda, Khuzaima Daudjee and M. Tamer Özsu at the University of Waterloo, published in PVLDB in 2014. It targets a specific gap: providing snapshot isolation across a database that is partitioned over several primary sites that all accept updates, without restricting a transaction to one site or partitioning the workload in advance, while also letting read replicas see globally consistent snapshots. Distributed update transactions commit with two-phase commit while ConfluxDB determines a global order for them, and a log-merging replication scheme combines the primaries' update streams into a single stream consistent with that order, which every replica applies. The prototype was built on PostgreSQL; no public code release is known.

Is ConfluxDB open source?

No. ConfluxDB is proprietary, closed-source software. License: Unreleased research code.

Does ConfluxDB support ACID transactions?

Yes. ConfluxDB supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.

Does ConfluxDB scale horizontally?

ConfluxDB scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at small scale (≤ 100 GB).

What is ConfluxDB best for?

ConfluxDB is a strong fit for studying replication protocols for snapshot isolation and background for multi-master partitioned database research. Think twice for any production use.

What are the best alternatives to ConfluxDB?

Common alternatives to ConfluxDB include PostgreSQL, CockroachDB, YugabyteDB, Citus and Progress OpenEdge. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

Is ConfluxDB still maintained?

ConfluxDB is discontinued. Academic prototype described in PVLDB vol. 7 (2014); no public release.

How popular is ConfluxDB?

ConfluxDB has little measurable public adoption today, so it ranks near the bottom of the WhichDB Score.