DBMS > Datastax Enterprise vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Solr vs. Sphinx vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Datastax Enterprise vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Solr vs. Sphinx vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is the always-on, scalable data platform built on Apache Cassandra and designed for hybrid Cloud. DSE integrates graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring into a unified platform.

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

A widely used distributed, scalable search engine based on Apache Lucene

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

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

Primary database model

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Search engine
Vector DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	5.80
Rank	#60	Overall
	#4	Wide column stores

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	42.91
Rank	#24	Overall
	#3	Search engines

Score	5.98
Rank	#56	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Score	1.73
Rank	#143	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

www.datastax.com/products/datastax-enterprise

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

solr.apache.org

sphinxsearch.com

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

docs.datastax.com

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

solr.apache.org/resources.html

sphinxsearch.com/docs

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

DataStax

Microsoft

Apache Software Foundation

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2011

1989

2006

2001

2019

Current release

6.8, April 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

9.6.0, April 2024

3.5.1, February 2023

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence 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.

Datastax Astra DB: Astra DB simplifies cloud-native Cassandra application development for your apps, microservices and functions. Deploy in minutes on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and have it managed for you by the experts, with serverless, pay-as-you-go pricing.

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

Java

C++

Java

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X

Linux
Windows

All OS with a Java VM

runs as a servlet in servlet container (e.g. Tomcat, Jetty is included)

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Dynamic Fields enables on-the-fly addition of new fields

yes

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

supports customizable data types and automatic typing

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 search fields are automatically indexed

yes

full-text index on all search fields

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL); Spark SQL

yes

Solr Parallel SQL Interface

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

CQL (Cassandra Query Language)
TinkerPop Gremlin

with DSE Graph

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

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Proprietary protocol

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

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

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

.Net
Erlang
Java
JavaScript
any language that supports sockets and either XML or JSON
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

Java plugins

Triggers

yes

User configurable commands triggered on index changes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

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

Sharding

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

configurable replication factor, datacenter aware, advanced replication for edge computing

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

spark-solr: github.com/lucidworks/spark-solr and streaming expressions to reduce

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency
Tunable Consistency

consistency level can be individually decided with each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

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 can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

DataStax Enterprise is scale-out data infrastructure for enterprises that need to...
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Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

Supporting the following application requirements: Zero downtime - Built on Apache...
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Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

Applications that must be massively and linearly scalable with 100% uptime and able...
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As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

Capital One, Cisco, Comcast, eBay, McDonald's, Microsoft, Safeway, Sony, UBS, and...
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All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

Among the Forbes 100 Most Innovative Companies, DataStax is trusted by 5 of the top...
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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

Annual subscription
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Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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