DBMS > 4D vs. Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostGIS

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostGIS

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Spatial extension of PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Spatial DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	2.58
Rank	#108	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	22.69
Rank	#29	Overall
	#1	Spatial DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

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

postgis.net

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

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

postgis.net/documentation

Developer

4D, Inc

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Microsoft

Initial release

1984

1989

2005

Current release

v20, April 2023

14.10.FC5, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

3.4.2, February 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL v2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

yes

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

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

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

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

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

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

yes

based on PostgreSQL

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes

based on PostgreSQL

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

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

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

based on PostgreSQL

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