DBMS > Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Snowflake vs. TypeDB

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Snowflake vs. TypeDB

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

TypeDB is a strongly-typed database with a rich and logical type system and TypeQL as its query language

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS
Relational DBMS

Often described as a 'hyper-relational' database, since it implements the 'Entity-Relationship Paradigm' to manage complex data structures and ontologies.

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	0.70
Rank	#230	Overall
	#20	Graph DBMS
	#106	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/informix

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

www.snowflake.com

typedb.com

Technical documentation

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

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

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

typedb.com/docs

Developer

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

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Vaticle

Initial release

1984

1989

2014

2016

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

2.26.3, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

commercial

restricted free version is available

commercial

Open Source

GPL Version 3, commercial licenses available

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.

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.

Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

C++

Java

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

hosted

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

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

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
JSON API

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

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

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

gRPC protocol
TypeDB Console (shell)
TypeDB Studio (Visualisation software- previously TypeDB Workbase)

Supported programming languages

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

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

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

All JVM based languages
Groovy
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

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

user defined functions

Triggers

yes

similar concept for controling cloud resources

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

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

yes

Sharding

by using Cassandra

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes

Multi-source replication

by using Cassandra

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

by using Apache Kafka and Apache Zookeeper

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

substituted by the relationship feature

Transaction concepts

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

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

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

yes

at REST API level; other APIs in progress

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

TypeDB is a polymorphic database with a conceptual data model, a strong subtyping...
» more

Competitive advantages

TypeDB provides a new level of expressivity, extensibility, interoperability, and...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Life sciences : TypeDB makes working with biological data much easier and accelerates...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Apache f or language drivers, and AGPL and Commercial for the database server. The...
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.