CloudKit vs Sparksee
CloudKit
developer.apple.com
Sparksee
sparsity-technologies.comSide by side
| Figure | CloudKit | Sparksee |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Spec score · Mobile Databases | 8.2 (#6) | 8.3 (#4) |
| Privacy | Apple says developers can develop, analyze, and debug apps without exposing users’ personally identifiable data. | The product page says data can remain on a user device to support privacy-preserving applications. |
| Security | Developers can configure fields in private CloudKit databases to be encrypted in storage and in transit to their application. | The product page says Sparksee offers disk-level encryption to protect data if a device is stolen, lost, or sold. |
| What it does | CloudKit stores app data in iCloud and keeps it up to date across devices and on the web. | Sparksee is an embeddable graph database management system for representing and analysing relationships between entities. |
Plans
Sparksee
- Academic licenceFree
- Free trialPrice not published
- IndustryPriced on request
- StartupPriced on request
In their own words
CloudKit
CloudKit is Apple’s service for storing structured app and user data in iCloud and synchronizing it across devices and the web. Data is organized in containers with public, private, and shared databases, and synchronization is bidirectional across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, visionOS, and web apps. CloudKit supports Swift, Objective-C, and JavaScript. Apple Developer Program membership includes up to 1PB of free storage for each app. CloudKit Console lets developers manage containers and schemas, inspect test data, and review telemetry, logs, and alerts. Fields in private databases can be configured for encryption in storage and while travelling to the application. Public databases use World, Authenticated, and Creator roles. Separate sandbox and production environments are provided; production schemas can only be changed in a forward-compatible manner. Automation supports integration tests from Xcode or a CI system, and CKTool JS can be embedded in developer tools. CloudKit JS adds CloudKit support to web apps. A free plan is listed at free, while pricing is from $99/yr. Incoming traffic is throttled by limits and controls that may change over time.
Sparksee
Sparksee is an embeddable graph database for applications that need to represent and analyse relationships among entities. It works against a database file from within an application process, so there is no cluster or query server to provision. The maker describes its compact bitmap-based representation as suited to graph computations in mobile and embedded environments. Built-in algorithms cover traversal, shortest paths, connectivity, community detection, and PageRank. Its API supports importing and exporting graph data, scripting, and Sparksee Cypher queries; Sparksee Algebra is also listed. API references cover.NET, Java, C++, Objective-C, Python, and openCypher. Sparksee supports ACID transactions, disk-level encryption, and recovery after database corruption. Keeping data on a user's device can support privacy-preserving apps and reduce reliance on cloud connectivity. Platforms include Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows, with API and self-hosted options. Eligible academic users can apply for a free licence; commercial licence pricing is on request.