DBMS > 4D vs. DuckDB vs. Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. STSdb

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. DuckDB vs. Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. STSdb

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

An embeddable, in-process, column-oriented SQL OLAP RDBMS

High performance Time Series DBMS

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Key-Value Store with special method for indexing

optimized for high performance using a special indexing method

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	2.58
Rank	#108	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	4.57
Rank	#74	Overall
	#40	Relational DBMS

Score	7.55
Rank	#53	Overall
	#3	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	0.04
Rank	#360	Overall
	#52	Key-value stores

Website

www.4d.com

duckdb.org

kx.com

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

github.com/STSSoft/STSdb4

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

duckdb.org/docs

code.kx.com

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

Developer

4D, Inc

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Microsoft

STS Soft SC

Initial release

1984

2018

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

1989

2011

Current release

v20, April 2023

0.10, February 2024

3.6, May 2018

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

4.0.8, September 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MIT License

commercial

free 32-bit version

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPLv2, commercial license available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

server-less

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

primitive types and user defined types (classes)

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

yes

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC)
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

.NET Client API

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

C
C#

3rd party driver
C++
Crystal

3rd party driver
Go

3rd party driver
Java
Lisp

3rd party driver
Python
R
Ruby

3rd party driver
Rust
Swift
Zig

3rd party driver

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

C#
Java

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

Triggers

yes

with views

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

horizontal partitioning

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

none

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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