DBMS > dBASE vs. Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. mSQL vs. SAP HANA

System Properties Comparison dBASE vs. Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. mSQL vs. SAP HANA

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

dBase was one of the first databases with a development environment on PC's. Its latest version dBase V is still sold as dBase classic, which needs a DOS Emulation. The up-to-date product is dBase plus.

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

mSQL (Mini SQL) is a simple and lightweight RDBMS

In-memory, column based data store. Available as appliance or cloud service

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with SAP Hana, Enterprise Edition
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	9.70
Rank	#44	Overall
	#28	Relational DBMS

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	1.27
Rank	#169	Overall
	#76	Relational DBMS

Score	44.27
Rank	#23	Overall
	#16	Relational DBMS

Website

www.dbase.com

www.ibm.com/products/informix

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

hughestech.com.au/products/msql

www.sap.com/products/hana.html

Technical documentation

www.dbase.com/support/knowledgebase

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

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

help.sap.com/hana

Developer

Asthon Tate

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Microsoft

Hughes Technologies

SAP

Initial release

1979

1984

1989

1994

2010

Current release

dBASE 2019, 2019

14.10.FC5, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

4.4, October 2021

2.0 SPS07 (April 4, 2023), April 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

free licenses can be provided

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

also available as a cloud based service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

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Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

C++

Server operating systems

DOS

dBase Classic
Windows

dBase Pro

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

Appliance or cloud-service

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

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

A subset of ANSI SQL is implemented

no subqueries, aggregate functions, views, foreign keys, triggers

yes

APIs and other access methods

none

The IDE can access other DBMS or ODBC-sources.

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

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

JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

dBase proprietary IDE

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

C
C++
Delphi
Java
Perl
PHP
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

The IDE can access stored procedures in other database systems.

yes

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

SQLScript, R

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

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

none

yes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

none

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

not for dBase internal data, but IDE does support transactions when accessing external DBMS

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users and roles

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

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