DBMS > DuckDB vs. IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison DuckDB vs. IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

An embeddable, in-process, column-oriented SQL OLAP RDBMS

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

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store
RDF store

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

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	4.57
Rank	#74	Overall
	#40	Relational DBMS

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

duckdb.org

www.ibm.com/products/db2

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

neo4j.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

duckdb.org/docs

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

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

neo4j.com/docs

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

IBM

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2018

1983

host version

1989

2007

2005

Current release

0.10, February 2024

12.1, October 2016

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.20, May 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT License

commercial

free version is available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

Implementation language

C++

C and C++

C++

Java, Scala

C++

Server operating systems

server-less

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

Linux
Windows

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

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

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC)
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

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

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

C
C#

3rd party driver
C++
Crystal

3rd party driver
Go

3rd party driver
Java
Lisp

3rd party driver
Python
R
Ruby

3rd party driver
Rust
Swift
Zig

3rd party driver

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

.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

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

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

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

yes using Neo4j Fabric

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

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Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing models

GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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