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DBMS > H2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison H2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameH2  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFull-featured RDBMS with a small footprint, either embedded into a Java application or used as a database server.Microsofts flagship relational DBMSWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score8.71
Rank#50  Overall
#32  Relational DBMS
Score903.83
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score650.90
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Websitewww.h2database.comwww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverwww.postgresql.org
Technical documentationwww.h2database.com/­html/­main.htmllearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverwww.postgresql.org/­docs
DeveloperThomas MuellerMicrosoftPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developer
Initial release200519891989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL
Current release2.2.220, July 2023SQL Server 2022, November 202216.1, November 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infodual-licence (Mozilla public license, Eclipse public license)commercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoBSD
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
Implementation languageJavaC++C
Server operating systemsAll OS with a Java VMLinux
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.noyesyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesyesyes infostandard with numerous extensions
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
ODBC
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesJavaC#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresJava Stored Procedures and User-Defined FunctionsTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javauser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.
Triggersyesyesyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesnonetables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesWith clustering: 2 database servers on different computers operate on identical copies of a databaseyes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensions
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyesyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)yesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesyesno
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources
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