DBMS > InfluxDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. MySQL vs. Redis vs. RRDtool

System Properties Comparison InfluxDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. MySQL vs. Redis vs. RRDtool

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

DBMS for storing time series, events and metrics

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Widely used open source RDBMS

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Industry standard data logging and graphing tool for time series data. RRD is an acronym for round-robin database.

The data is stored in a circular buffer, thus the system storage footprint remains constant over time.

Primary database model

Time Series DBMS

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

with GEO package

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	24.39
Rank	#28	Overall
	#1	Time Series DBMS

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	1061.34
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	155.94
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	1.90
Rank	#132	Overall
	#11	Time Series DBMS

Website

www.influxdata.com/products/influxdb-overview

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

www.mysql.com

redis.com
redis.io

oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool

Technical documentation

docs.influxdata.com/influxdb

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

dev.mysql.com/doc

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/doc

Developer

Microsoft

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Tobias Oetiker

Initial release

2013

1989

1995

2009

1999

Current release

2.7.6, April 2024

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

8.4.0, April 2024

7.2.5, May 2024

1.8.0, 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License; commercial enterprise version available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

Open Source

GPL V2 and FLOSS

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.

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.

Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C++

C and C++

Implementations in Java (e.g. RRD4J) and C# available

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X

through Homebrew

Linux
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

HP-UX
Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

Numeric data and Strings

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

Numeric data only

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

Exporting into and restoring from XML files possible

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

yes

with proprietary extensions

with RediSQL module

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API
JSON over UDP

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

in-process shared library
Pipes

Supported programming languages

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

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

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

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

with librrd library
C#

with a different implementation of RRDTool
Java

with a different implementation of RRDTool
JavaScript (Node.js)

with a different implementation of RRDTool
Lua
Perl
PHP

with a wrapper library
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes

proprietary syntax

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

in enterprise version only

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

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

selectable replication factor

in enterprise version only

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

none

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

by using the rrdcached daemon

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

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,...
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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...
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Webinar Recap: Unleash the Full Potential of Your Time Series Data with InfluxDB and AWS
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.