DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Couchbase vs. Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Couchbase vs. Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

High performance Time Series DBMS

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	13.77
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	17.30
Rank	#36	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	7.55
Rank	#53	Overall
	#3	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

impala.apache.org

www.couchbase.com

kx.com

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

Technical documentation

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

docs.couchbase.com

code.kx.com

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

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Couchbase, Inc.

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Microsoft

Initial release

2013

2011

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

1989

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

Server: 7.2, June 2023; Mobile: 3.1, March 2022; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), June 2023

3.6, May 2018

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

commercial

free 32-bit version

commercial

restricted free version is available

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.

Implementation language

C++

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC

CLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

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

Supported programming languages

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

user defined functions

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

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

with views

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Automatic Sharding

horizontal partitioning

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

yes

similar paradigm used for internal processing

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

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

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

Ephemeral buckets

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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