DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Virtuoso vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Virtuoso vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

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

Virtuoso is a multi-model hybrid-RDBMS that supports management of data represented as relational tables and/or property graphs

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

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Native XML DBMS
Relational DBMS
RDF store
Search engine

Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	0.46
Rank	#260	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#121	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	4.26
Rank	#78	Overall
	#13	Document stores
	#4	Graph DBMS
	#2	Native XML DBMS
	#42	Relational DBMS
	#2	RDF stores
	#9	Search engines

Score	1.73
Rank	#143	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

alasql.org

www.ibm.com/products/informix

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

virtuoso.openlinksw.com

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

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

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

docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

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

OpenLink Software

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2014

1984

1989

1998

2019

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

7.2.11, September 2023

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPLv2, extended 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.

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Implementation language

JavaScript

C, C++ and Java

C++

Server operating systems

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

SQL - Standard relational schema
RDF - Quad (S, P, O, G) or Triple (S, P, O)
XML - DTD, XML Schema
DAV - freeform filesystem objects, plus User Defined Types a/k/a Dynamic Extension Type

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

yes

SQL-92, SQL-200x, SQL-3, SQLX

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

JDBC
JSON API

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

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

ADO.NET
GeoSPARQL
HTTP API
JDBC
Jena RDF API
ODBC
OLE DB
RDF4J API
RESTful HTTP API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SOAP webservices
SPARQL 1.1
WebDAV
XPath
XQuery
XSLT

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

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

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

.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

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

yes

Virtuoso PL

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

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Chain, star, and bi-directional replication
Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

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 with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Fine-grained Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) in addition to typical coarse-grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) according to SQL-standard. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Virtuoso is a modern multi-model RDBMS for managing data represented as tabular relations...
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Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

Performance & Scale — as exemplified by DBpedia and the LOD Cloud it spawned, i.e.,...
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Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

Used for — Analytics/BI Conceptual Data Virtualization Enterprise Knowledge Graphs...
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As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

Broad use across enterprises and governments including — European Union (EU) US Government...
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All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

Largest installed-base of Multi-Model RDBMS for AI-friendly Knowledge Graphs Platform...
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As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
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Licensing and pricing models

Available in both Commercial Enterprise and Open Source (GPL v2) Editions Feature...
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Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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