# Databases

This page has some bookmarks about databases.

One day I would like to see a graph database that I could use as the main data store as confidently as PostgreSQL or SQLite. I don't think graph databases are there yet, but a few could reach that point.


## Contents


## Writings

### Graph model {#graph-model}

- ["Survey of Graph Database Models"](http://www.cs.unibo.it/~montesi/CBD/Articoli/Survey%20of%20graph%20database%20models.pdf), Renzo Angles, Claudio Gutierrez (2008)
- ["Do We Need Specialized Graph Databases? Benchmarking Real-Time Social Networking Applications"](https://event.cwi.nl/grades/2017/12-Apaci.pdf), Anil Pacaci, Alice Zhou, Jimmy Lin, M. Tamer Özsu (2017)

### Historical DBMS {#historical}

- ["CODASYL Data-Base Management Systems"](/codasyl), Robert W. Taylor, Randall L. Frank (1976)

### Relational model {#relational-model}

- ["A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks"](https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~zives/03f/cis550/codd.pdf), E. F. Codd (1970)
- ["Against SQL"](https://scattered-thoughts.net/writing/against-sql/), Jamie Brandon (2021). Summary: the relational model is great; SQL is verbose, fragile, and closed to interaction with other systems. It makes it difficult to factor out reusable patterns. "The entire database industry is hauling a massive SQL-shaped parachute behind them. This complexity creates a drag on everything downstream."

### Understanding and using modern RDBMS {#modern-rdbms}
- ["How Postgres Makes Transactions Atomic"](https://brandur.org/postgres-atomicity), Brandur (2017)
- ["Let's Build a Simple Database"](https://cstack.github.io/db_tutorial/), Connor Stack
- [_Use The Index, Luke! A Guide to Database Performance for Developers_](https://use-the-index-luke.com/), Markus Winand


## Software

Interesting database engines. Open source unless noted otherwise.

### Embedded
- [Firebird](https://firebirdsql.org/)
- [SQLite](https://sqlite.org/)

### Graph

- [Dgraph](https://dgraph.io/). Distributed.
- [HyperGraphDB](https://hypergraphdb.org/)
- [LemonGraph](https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/lemongraph). Embedded (Python). Made by the NSA.
- [Nebula Graph](https://nebula-graph.io/en/). Distributed.
- [RedisGraph](https://redis.io/docs/latest/operate/oss_and_stack/stack-with-enterprise/deprecated-features/graph/). [Fast](https://redis.io/blog/new-redisgraph-1-0-achieves-600x-faster-performance-graph-databases/) due to the [use of GraphBLAS](https://www.slideshare.net/RoiLipman/graph-algebra). Shared-source license. [EOL](https://redis.io/blog/redisgraph-eol/) announced in 2023.

### Key-value
- [FoundationDB](https://www.foundationdb.org/). Distributed. Has a document and a record layer.

## Page metadata

URL: <https://dbohdan.com/databases.md>

Published 2020-04-17, updated 2025-10-20.

Tags:

- bookmarks
- data
- databases