DBMS > Interbase vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. OrientDB

System Properties Comparison Interbase vs. Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. OrientDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Light-weight proven RDBMS

originally from Borland

Microsoft Access combines a backend RDBMS (JET / ACE Engine) with a GUI frontend for data manipulation and queries.

The Access frontend is often used for accessing other datasources (DBMS, Excel, etc.)

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Multi-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	5.04
Rank	#71	Overall
	#39	Relational DBMS

Score	105.40
Rank	#11	Overall
	#8	Relational DBMS

Score	829.80
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	3.27
Rank	#97	Overall
	#16	Document stores
	#6	Graph DBMS
	#15	Key-value stores

Website

www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access

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

orientdb.org

Technical documentation

docs.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

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

www.orientdb.com/docs/last/index.html

Developer

Embarcadero

Microsoft

OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAP

Initial release

1984

1992

1989

2010

Current release

InterBase 2020, December 2019

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

3.2.29, March 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Apache version 2

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Java

Server operating systems

Android
iOS
Linux
OS X
Windows

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

Linux
Windows

All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Schema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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.

export as XML data possible

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

but not compliant to any SQL standard

yes

SQL-like query language, no joins

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

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

Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java
Object Pascal
PHP
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET

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

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Interbase procedure and trigger language

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

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

Java, Javascript

Triggers

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

yes

Hooks

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

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

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Interbase Change Views

none

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Multi-source replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

could be achieved with distributed queries

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

relationship in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

but no files for transaction logging

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Multiversion concurreny control

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

but no files for transaction logging

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurable

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