DBMS > InfluxDB vs. LokiJS vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

System Properties Comparison InfluxDB vs. LokiJS vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

DBMS for storing time series, events and metrics

In-memory JavaScript DBMS

Fully managed big data interactive analytics platform

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

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

Primary database model

column oriented

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

with GEO package

Document store

If a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types/dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store

this is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

support for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/time-series-analysis

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	26.56
Rank	#28	Overall
	#1	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.48
Rank	#262	Overall
	#42	Document stores

Score	5.16
Rank	#69	Overall
	#37	Relational DBMS

Score	829.80
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	4.57
Rank	#78	Overall
	#43	Relational DBMS

Website

www.influxdata.com/products/influxdb-overview

github.com/techfort/LokiJS

azure.microsoft.com/services/data-explorer

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

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

Technical documentation

docs.influxdata.com/influxdb

techfort.github.io/LokiJS

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer

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

help.sap.com/docs/SAP_SQL_Anywhere

Developer

Microsoft

SAP

formerly Sybase

Initial release

2013

2014

2019

1989

1992

Current release

2.7.5, January 2024

cloud service with continuous releases

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

17, July 2015

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License; commercial enterprise version available

Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X

through Homebrew

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

hosted

Linux
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

Fixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

Numeric data and Strings

yes

bool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types

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

via views

all fields are automatically indexed

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

Kusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subset

yes

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API
JSON over UDP

JavaScript API

Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API

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

ADO.NET
HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

.Net
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala

JavaScript

.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R

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

View functions in JavaScript

Yes, possible languages: KQL, Python, R

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

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

Triggers

yes

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/management/updatepolicy

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

in enterprise version only

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

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

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

in enterprise version only

none

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Source-replica replication

Database mirroring

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Spark connector (open source): github.com/Azure/azure-kusto-spark

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

atomic operations within a single collection possible

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Serialization of a DB in a Node.JS/Cordova/PhoneGap environment. Usage of the IndexedDB-API in a browser.

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Depending on used storage engine

yes

User concepts

Access control

simple rights management via user accounts

Azure Active Directory Authentication

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

InfluxData is the creator of InfluxDB , the open source time series database. It...
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Competitive advantages

Time to Value InfluxDB is available in all the popular languages and frameworks,...
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Typical application scenarios

IoT & Sensor Monitoring Developers are witnessing the instrumentation of every available...
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Key customers

InfluxData has more than 1,900 paying customers, including customers include MuleSoft,...
» more

Market metrics

Fastest-growing database to drive 27,500 GitHub stars Over 750,000 daily active instances
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Open source core with closed source clustering available either on-premise or on...
» more

News

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8 April 2024

Infrastructure Monitoring Basics: Getting Started with Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana
5 April 2024

Comparing Dates in Java: A Tutorial
3 April 2024

Python ARIMA Tutorial
29 March 2024

Time Series, InfluxDB, and Vector Databases
26 March 2024

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.