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4D VS Firestore

Compare 4D VS Firestore and see what are their differences

4D logo 4D

4D is a relational database management system and IDE.

Firestore logo Firestore

Easily develop rich applications using a fully managed, scalable, and serverless document database.
  • 4D Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-23
Not present

4D features and specs

  • Comprehensive Development Environment
    4D provides a complete suite of tools for building and deploying applications, which includes both development and database management. This can accelerate the development process for businesses looking for an all-in-one solution.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    4D allows developers to create applications that can run on multiple operating systems including Windows and macOS, broadening the reach and flexibility of the solutions built on this platform.
  • Integrated Database Management
    With a built-in database engine, 4D simplifies database management and integration, reducing the need for additional software and streamlining the development process.
  • Strong Community Support
    The 4D platform has a dedicated user community and offers extensive documentation and support resources, making it easier for developers to find solutions and assistance when needed.

Possible disadvantages of 4D

  • Learning Curve
    The platform may have a steep learning curve for new users, particularly those who are not familiar with integrated development environments or the specific language used by 4D.
  • Licensing Costs
    4D can be costly, with licensing fees required for using the platform, which could be a barrier for small businesses or individual developers.
  • Limited Popularity
    Compared to other development platforms, 4D is less widely adopted, which could limit the availability of third-party integrations and plugins.
  • Platform-Specific Features
    While 4D offers robust features, some of them might be specific to certain operating systems, potentially limiting application functionality across different environments.

Firestore features and specs

  • Scalability
    Google Cloud Datastore can automatically scale to handle large amounts of data and high read/write loads, making it suitable for applications with growing data needs.
  • Fully Managed
    As a fully managed service, Google Cloud Datastore eliminates the need for managing servers, software patches, and replication, allowing developers to focus on building applications.
  • High Availability
    Datastore provides strong consistency for reads and writes and is designed to maintain availability even in case of entire data center outages.
  • Flexible Data Model
    The schemaless nature of Datastore allows for a flexible data model that can easily adapt to changes in application requirements.
  • Integration with Google Cloud Platform
    Datastore seamlessly integrates with other Google Cloud Platform services, which simplifies the process of building end-to-end solutions.

Possible disadvantages of Firestore

  • Complex Query Language
    Datastore Query Language (GQL) can be less intuitive compared to SQL, which may pose a learning curve for developers accustomed to traditional relational databases.
  • Eventual Consistency for Queries
    While Datastore offers strong consistency for entity lookups by key, queries must be specifically configured for strong consistency, otherwise they might return eventually consistent data.
  • Cost
    As usage scales, costs can increase, particularly for applications with high write loads or those requiring many transactional operations, which might be a consideration for budget-conscious projects.
  • Limited Relational Capabilities
    Datastore is a NoSQL database, which means it lacks some of the relational features like joins and complex transactions that developers might expect from a SQL database.
  • Index Management
    Managing indexes can become complex, as every query in Datastore requires a corresponding index, and poorly planned indexes can lead to increased storage costs and slower query performance.

Analysis of Firestore

Overall verdict

  • Firestore is a robust, fully-managed NoSQL document database from Google Cloud that excels at real-time data synchronization, effortless scaling, and seamless integration with the broader Firebase and Google Cloud ecosystems, making it a strong choice for modern app development.

Why this product is good

  • Fully managed and serverless, eliminating the need for infrastructure provisioning and maintenance
  • Real-time data synchronization and offline support, ideal for responsive mobile and web apps
  • Automatic horizontal scaling to handle large numbers of concurrent users
  • Strong integration with Firebase Authentication, Cloud Functions, and other Google Cloud services
  • Flexible document-based data model with powerful querying capabilities
  • Robust security rules for fine-grained access control without a backend server
  • Multi-region replication offering high availability and strong consistency

Recommended for

  • Mobile and web app developers needing real-time updates and offline capabilities
  • Startups and teams wanting to move fast without managing database infrastructure
  • Applications already using Firebase or Google Cloud Platform
  • Projects with unpredictable or rapidly growing traffic requiring automatic scaling
  • Serverless architectures leveraging Cloud Functions and event-driven workflows
  • Collaborative and chat applications that benefit from live data synchronization

4D videos

1 Month AFTER Wearing adidas FUTURECRAFT 4D! PROS & CONS!

More videos:

  • Review - IS THIS ADIDAS 4D SNEAKER BETTER THAN THE ULTRABOOST?!
  • Review - ADIDAS FUTURECRAFT 4D REVIEW: THE 3D PRINTED SNEAKER

Firestore videos

Firestore v10: Setup & Free Tier in 4 Mins (2026)

More videos:

  • Review - Introduction to Firestore | NoSQL Document Database
  • Review - To Realtime or Not? | Get to know Cloud Firestore #10

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to 4D and Firestore)
Databases
48 48%
52% 52
NoSQL Databases
49 49%
51% 51
Development
100 100%
0% 0
Network & Admin
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Firestore seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 3 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

4D mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of 4D yet. Tracking of 4D recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Firestore mentions (3)

  • Announcing Brighter V10: A Major Release with Cloud Events, New Providers, and Enhanced Resilience
    Firestore for Inbox, Outbox, and Distributed Lock. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Guide to modern app-hosting without servers on Google Cloud
    Your app must be stateless. Don't use embedded databases. When your users hit your app again, they may be reaching another instance in a completely different state. Persist data in cloud-based storage like GCS, Cloud SQL, or Cloud Firestore. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Introduction to true serverless databases
    Google Firestore is a serverless document database providing direct web, IoT, and mobile app development access. Itโ€™s highly scalable with no maintenance window and zero downtime. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Using Google Cloud Firestore with Django's ORM
    A long time ago, a fork of Django called โ€œDjango-nonrelโ€ experimented with the idea of using Djangoโ€™s ORM with a non-relational database; what was then called the App Engine Datastore, but is now known as Google Cloud Datastore (or technically, Google Cloud Firestore in Datastore Mode). Since then a more recent project called "django-gcloud-connectors" has been developed by Potato to allow seamless ORM integration... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • How to deploy flask app with sqlite on google cloud ?
    In that case use Cloud Datastore (aka Firestore in Datastore Mode). It's a NoSQL db that was initially targeted just for GAE (you needed to have a GAE App even if empty to use it) but that requirement has been relaxed. Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing 4D and Firestore, you can also consider the following products

Redis - Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

MarkLogic Server - MarkLogic Server is a multi-model database that has both NoSQL and trusted enterprise data management capabilities.

LiveCode Platform - It is Both Under the GPL and it is also Proprietary if using the GPL version the software you make...

Datomic - The fully transactional, cloud-ready, distributed database

MongoDB - MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance NoSQL database.

Valentina Server - Valentina Server is 3 in 1: Valentina DB Server / SQLite Server / Report Server