DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Firebird vs. IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP Adaptive Server

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Firebird vs. IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP Adaptive Server

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

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

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

The SAP (Sybase) Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) is an enterprise-class RDBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS

with Boeing's Spatial Query Server

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

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	36.31
Rank	#25	Overall
	#17	Relational DBMS

Website

impala.apache.org

www.firebirdsql.org

www.ibm.com/products/db2

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

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sybase-ase.html

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

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

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_ASE

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Firebird Foundation

IBM

Microsoft

SAP, Sybase

Initial release

2013

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

1983

host version

1989

1987

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

5.0.0, January 2024

12.1, October 2016

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

16.0

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

commercial

free version is available

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

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.

Implementation language

C++

C and C++

C++

C and C++

Server operating systems

Linux

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

Linux
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Unix
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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

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

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

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

C
C++
Cobol
Java
Java
Perl
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

PSQL

yes

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

Java and Transact-SQL

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

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

horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

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

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.