DBMS > dBASE vs. IBM Db2 vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

System Properties Comparison dBASE vs. IBM Db2 vs. InterSystems IRIS vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

dBase was one of the first databases with a development environment on PC's. Its latest version dBase V is still sold as dBase classic, which needs a DOS Emulation. The up-to-date product is dBase plus.

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

A containerised multi-model DBMS, interoperability and analytics data platform with wide capabilities for vertical and horizontal scalability

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

RDBMS database and synchronization technologies for server, desktop, remote office, and mobile environments

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Document store
Key-value store
Object oriented DBMS
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

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

Score	10.34
Rank	#44	Overall
	#28	Relational DBMS

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	4.05
Rank	#83	Overall
	#14	Document stores
	#10	Key-value stores
	#1	Object oriented DBMS
	#45	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	4.25
Rank	#79	Overall
	#43	Relational DBMS

Website

www.dbase.com

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.intersystems.com/products/intersystems-iris

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

www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/sql-anywhere.html

Technical documentation

www.dbase.com/support/knowledgebase

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls

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

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

Developer

Asthon Tate

IBM

InterSystems

Microsoft

SAP

formerly Sybase

Initial release

1979

1983

host version

2018

1989

1992

Current release

dBASE 2019, 2019

12.1, October 2016

2023.3, June 2023

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

17, July 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

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

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Implementation language

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

DOS

dBase Classic
Windows

dBase Pro

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

AIX
Linux
macOS
Ubuntu
Windows

Linux
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

yes

depending on used data model

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

yes

APIs and other access methods

none

The IDE can access other DBMS or ODBC-sources.

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

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

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

dBase proprietary IDE

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

.Net
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

The IDE can access stored procedures in other database systems.

yes

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

yes, in C/C++, Java, .Net or Perl

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

Sharding

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

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

not for dBase internal data, but IDE does support transactions when accessing external DBMS

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

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

InterSystems IRIS is a complete cloud-first data platform which includes a multi-model...
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