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DBMS > Informix vs. Microsoft Azure AI Search vs. Sphinx vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. Microsoft Azure AI Search vs. Sphinx vs. Weaviate

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameInformix  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure AI Search  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonWeaviate  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionA secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things dataSearch-as-a-service for web and mobile app developmentOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesAn AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDBSearch engineSearch engineVector DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS infowith Informix TimeSeries Extension
Vector DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score17.87
Rank#35  Overall
#22  Relational DBMS
Score5.59
Rank#63  Overall
#7  Search engines
Score5.98
Rank#56  Overall
#5  Search engines
Score1.73
Rank#143  Overall
#5  Vector DBMS
Websitewww.ibm.com/­products/­informixazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­services/­searchsphinxsearch.comgithub.com/­weaviate/­weaviate
weaviate.io
Technical documentationinformix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/­support/­knowledgecenter/­SSGU8G/­welcomeIfxServers.html
learn.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­searchsphinxsearch.com/­docsweaviate.io/­developers/­weaviate
DeveloperIBM, HCL Technologies infoEffective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.MicrosoftSphinx Technologies Inc.Weaviate B.V.
Initial release1984201520012019
Current release14.10.FC5, November 2020V13.5.1, February 20231.19, May 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infofree developer edition availablecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availableOpen Source infocommercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenoyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageC, C++ and JavaC++Go
Server operating systemsAIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
hostedFreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesyes, maps to GraphQL interface
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyes infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypesyesnoyes infostring, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references
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.nono
Secondary indexesyesyesyes infofull-text index on all search fieldsyes infoall data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesnoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)GraphQL is used as query language
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
JSON API infoMongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
RESTful HTTP APIProprietary protocolGraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
Supported programming languages.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
C#
Java
JavaScript
Python
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
JavaScript / TypeScript
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyesnonono
Triggersyesnonono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
yes infoImplicit feature of the cloud servicenoneyes
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesnonono
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnonono
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesnoyes
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controlsyes infousing Azure authenticationnoAPI Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery
More information provided by the system vendor
InformixMicrosoft Azure AI SearchSphinxWeaviate
Specific characteristicsWeaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
» more
Competitive advantagesFlexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
» more
Typical application scenariosAs a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
» more
Key customersAll companies that have data. ​
» more
Market metricsAs of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsWeaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
» more

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InformixMicrosoft Azure AI SearchSphinxWeaviate
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