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DBMS > IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL vs. Virtuoso

System Properties Comparison IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL vs. Virtuoso

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameIBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonVirtuoso  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionCommon in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/LinuxMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLVirtuoso is a multi-model hybrid-RDBMS that supports management of data represented as relational tables and/or property graphs
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infoSince Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDBRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Document store
Graph DBMS
Native XML DBMS
Relational DBMS
RDF store
Search engine
Secondary database modelsDocument store
RDF store infoin Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS infowith Db2 Spatial Extender
Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score127.75
Rank#8  Overall
#5  Relational DBMS
Score845.81
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score634.91
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score4.39
Rank#82  Overall
#13  Document stores
#4  Graph DBMS
#2  Native XML DBMS
#44  Relational DBMS
#2  RDF stores
#9  Search engines
Websitewww.ibm.com/­products/­db2www.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverwww.postgresql.orgvirtuoso.openlinksw.com
Technical documentationwww.ibm.com/­docs/­en/­db2learn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverwww.postgresql.org/­docsdocs.openlinksw.com/­virtuoso
DeveloperIBMMicrosoftPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerOpenLink Software
Initial release1983 infohost version19891989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL1998
Current release12.1, October 2016SQL Server 2022, November 202216.2, February 20247.2.11, September 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infofree version is availablecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoBSDOpen Source infoGPLv2, extended commercial license available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
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 languageC and C++C++CC
Server operating systemsAIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS
Linux
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesyes infoSQL - Standard relational schema
RDF - Quad (S, P, O, G) or Triple (S, P, O)
XML - DTD, XML Schema
DAV - freeform filesystem objects, plus User Defined Types a/k/a Dynamic Extension Type
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyes
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.yesyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.yes
Secondary indexesyesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesyesyes infostandard with numerous extensionsyes infoSQL-92, SQL-200x, SQL-3, SQLX
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries infoMongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
ADO.NET
GeoSPARQL
HTTP API
JDBC
Jena RDF API
ODBC
OLE DB
RDF4J API
RESTful HTTP API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SOAP webservices
SPARQL 1.1
WebDAV
XPath
XQuery
XSLT
Supported programming languagesC
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
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyesTransact 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.yes infoVirtuoso PL
Triggersyesyesyesyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoonly with Windows/Unix/Linux Versiontables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashyes
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes infowith separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)yes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsChain, star, and bi-directional replication
Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononoyes
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyesyesyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesnoyes
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardFine-grained Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) in addition to typical coarse-grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) according to SQL-standard. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
IBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2Microsoft SQL ServerPostgreSQLVirtuoso
Specific characteristicsVirtuoso is a modern multi-model RDBMS for managing data represented as tabular relations...
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Competitive advantagesPerformance & Scale — as exemplified by DBpedia and the LOD Cloud it spawned, i.e.,...
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Typical application scenariosUsed for — Analytics/BI Conceptual Data Virtualization Enterprise Knowledge Graphs...
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Key customersBroad use across enterprises and governments including — European Union (EU) US Government...
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Market metricsLargest installed-base ​of Multi-Model RDBMS for AI-friendly Knowledge Graphs Platform...
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Licensing and pricing modelsAvailable in both Commercial Enterprise and Open Source (GPL v2) Editions Feature...
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More resources
IBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2Microsoft SQL ServerPostgreSQLVirtuoso
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