DBMS > 4D vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. STSdb vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. STSdb vs. Weaviate

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Key-Value Store with special method for indexing

optimized for high performance using a special indexing method

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.68
Rank	#110	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	829.80
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	0.06
Rank	#365	Overall
	#55	Key-value stores

Score	1.89
Rank	#138	Overall
	#4	Vector DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

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

github.com/STSSoft/STSdb4

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

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

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

4D, Inc

Microsoft

STS Soft SC

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

1984

1989

2011

2019

Current release

v20, April 2023

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

4.0.8, September 2015

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPLv2, commercial license available

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

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++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

Linux
Windows

Windows

Data scheme

yes

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

primitive types and user defined types (classes)

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

yes

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

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

.NET Client API

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

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

C#
Java

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

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

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

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

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual 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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
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Licensing and pricing models

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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