DBMS > IBM Db2 vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostGIS

System Properties Comparison IBM Db2 vs. MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostGIS

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL.

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Spatial extension of PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Relational DBMS

Spatial DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
RDF store

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

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	128.46
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	22.69
Rank	#29	Overall
	#1	Spatial DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/db2

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

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

postgis.net

Technical documentation

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

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

postgis.net/documentation

Developer

IBM

MariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server)

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Microsoft

Initial release

1983

host version

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

1989

2005

Current release

12.1, October 2016

11.3.2, February 2024

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

3.4.2, February 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free version is available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL v2.0

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.

STACKIT MariaDB offers MariaDB in a fully managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant.

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

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

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

with proprietary extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

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

Supported programming languages

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

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Eiffel
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

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

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

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

yes

based on PostgreSQL

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes

based on PostgreSQL

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

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

not for in-memory storage engine

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

with MEMORY storage engine

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

based on PostgreSQL

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
» more

Competitive advantages

MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
» more

Typical application scenarios

Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
» more

Key customers

Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
» more

Market metrics

MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
» more

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