DBMS > Adabas vs. Apache Drill vs. Firebird vs. MaxDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Apache Drill vs. Firebird vs. MaxDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

OLTP - DBMS for mainframes and Linux/Unix/Windows environments

used typically together with the Natural programming platform

Schema-free SQL Query Engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and Cloud Storage

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

A robust and reliable RDBMS optimized to run all major SAP solutions

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	3.17
Rank	#94	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	1.95
Rank	#127	Overall
	#23	Document stores
	#60	Relational DBMS

Score	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	2.32
Rank	#112	Overall
	#55	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

www.softwareag.com/en_corporate/platform/adabas-natural.html

drill.apache.org

www.firebirdsql.org

maxdb.sap.com

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

Technical documentation

drill.apache.org/docs

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

maxdb.sap.com/documentation

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

Developer

Software AG

Apache Software Foundation

Firebird Foundation

SAP, acquired from Software AG (Adabas-D) in 1997

Microsoft

Initial release

1971

2012

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

1984

1989

Current release

1.20.3, January 2023

5.0.0, January 2024

7.9.10.12, February 2024

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

commercial

Limited community edition free

commercial

restricted free version is available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

Linux
OS X
Windows

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

SQL SELECT statement is SQL:2003 compliant

yes

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway
SOAP-based API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
WebDAV

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

Supported programming languages

Natural

C++

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

.Net
C#
Java
Perl
PHP
Python

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

user defined functions

PSQL

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

yes, with additonal products like Adabas Cluster Services, Adabas Parallel Services, Adabas Vista

Sharding

none

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

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

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

User concepts

Access control

only with OS-specific tools (e.g. IBM RACF, CA Top Secret)

Depending on the underlying data source

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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