DBMS > Kdb vs. Lovefield vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Sphinx vs. Stardog

System Properties Comparison Kdb vs. Lovefield vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Sphinx vs. Stardog

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

Enterprise Knowledge Graph platform and graph DBMS with high availability, high performance reasoning, and virtualization

Primary database model

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Search engine

Graph DBMS
RDF store

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	7.55
Rank	#53	Overall
	#3	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	0.29
Rank	#293	Overall
	#133	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	5.98
Rank	#56	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Score	2.02
Rank	#123	Overall
	#11	Graph DBMS
	#6	RDF stores

Website

kx.com

google.github.io/lovefield

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

sphinxsearch.com

www.stardog.com

Technical documentation

code.kx.com

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

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

sphinxsearch.com/docs

docs.stardog.com

Developer

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Google

Microsoft

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

Stardog-Union

Initial release

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

2014

1989

2001

2010

Current release

3.6, May 2018

2.1.12, February 2017

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

3.5.1, February 2023

7.3.0, May 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free 32-bit version

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence available

commercial

60-day fully-featured trial license; 1-year fully-featured non-commercial use license for academics/students

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

JavaScript

C++

Java

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

Linux
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support

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.

yes

Import/export of XML data possible

Secondary indexes

yes

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

full-text index on all search fields

yes

supports real-time indexing in full-text and geospatial

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language (q)

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

yes

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

Yes, compatible with all major SQL variants through dedicated BI/SQL Server

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

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

Proprietary protocol

GraphQL query language
HTTP API
Jena RDF API
OWL
RDF4J API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SNARL
SPARQL
Spring Data
Stardog Studio
TinkerPop 3

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

JavaScript

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

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

.Net
Clojure
Groovy
Java
JavaScript
Python
Ruby

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

user defined functions and aggregates, HTTP Server extensions in Java

Triggers

yes

with views

Using read-only observers

yes

via event handlers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning

none

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

Sharding

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

none

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

none

Multi-source replication in HA-Cluster

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency in HA-Cluster

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

relationships in graphs

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

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

using MemoryDB

yes

User concepts

Access control

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users and roles

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
» more

Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
» more

Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.