DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Axibase vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Postgres-XL vs. Redis

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Axibase vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Postgres-XL vs. Redis

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

Scalable TimeSeries DBMS based on HBase with integrated rule engine and visualization

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Primary database model

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Secondary database models

Document store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	0.29
Rank	#292	Overall
	#25	Time Series DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	0.49
Rank	#256	Overall
	#117	Relational DBMS

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Website

impala.apache.org

axibase.com/docs/atsd/finance

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

www.postgres-xl.org

redis.com
redis.io

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

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

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Axibase Corporation

Microsoft

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Initial release

2013

1989

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

2009

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

15585

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

10 R1, October 2018

7.2.4, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

commercial

Community Edition (single node) is free, Enterprise Edition (distributed) is paid

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Mozilla public license

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis 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.

SQLServer Flex @ STACKIT offers a managed version of SQL Server with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C++

Java

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

Linux
Windows

Linux
macOS

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

short, integer, long, float, double, decimal, string

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

XML type, but no XML query functionality

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

SQL-like query language

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

with RediSQL module

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

JDBC
Proprietary protocol (Network API)
RESTful HTTP API

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

Go
Java
PHP
Python
R
Ruby

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

yes

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

user defined functions

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

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

horizontal partitioning

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

MVCC

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

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