DBMS > Adabas vs. Firebird vs. Interbase vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. Firebird vs. Interbase vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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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

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

Light-weight proven RDBMS

originally from Borland

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Multivalue 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	3.58
Rank	#91	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	21.06
Rank	#31	Overall
	#19	Relational DBMS

Score	5.04
Rank	#71	Overall
	#39	Relational DBMS

Score	829.80
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

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

www.firebirdsql.org

www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

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

Technical documentation

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

docs.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

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

Developer

Software AG

Firebird Foundation

Embarcadero

Microsoft

Initial release

1971

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

1984

1989

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

InterBase 2020, December 2019

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

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

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Android
iOS
Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

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.

export as XML data possible

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

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

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

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

Supported programming languages

Natural

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java
Object Pascal
PHP
Ruby

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

PSQL

yes

Interbase procedure and trigger language

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

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

Interbase Change Views

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

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

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

yes

Multiversion concurreny control

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

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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