DBMS > Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. ScyllaDB vs. TimescaleDB vs. Titan

System Properties Comparison Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. ScyllaDB vs. TimescaleDB vs. Titan

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Titan has been decommisioned after the takeover by Datastax. It will be removed from the DB-Engines ranking. A fork has been open-sourced as JanusGraph.

Description

High performance Time Series DBMS

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Titan is a Graph DBMS optimized for distributed clusters.

Primary database model

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Key-value store

Relational 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	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	4.75
Rank	#68	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	4.64
Rank	#71	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Website

kx.com

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

www.scylladb.com

www.timescale.com

github.com/thinkaurelius/titan

Technical documentation

code.kx.com

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

docs.scylladb.com

docs.timescale.com

github.com/thinkaurelius/titan/wiki

Developer

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Microsoft

ScyllaDB

Timescale

Aurelius, owned by DataStax

Initial release

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

1989

2015

2017

2012

Current release

3.6, May 2018

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free 32-bit version

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

Apache license, version 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Scylla Cloud: Create real-time applications that run at global scale with Scylla Cloud, the industry’s most powerful NoSQL DBaaS

Implementation language

C++

Java

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

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

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

cluster global secondary indices

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

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

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Java API
TinkerPop Blueprints
TinkerPop Frames
TinkerPop Gremlin
TinkerPop Rexster

Supported programming languages

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

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

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Clojure
Java
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

yes, Lua

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

yes

Triggers

yes

with views

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning

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

Sharding

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

yes

via pluggable storage backends

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

yes

via Faunus, a graph analytics engine

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graph

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Supports various storage backends: Cassandra, HBase, Berkeley DB, Akiban, Hazelcast

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

User authentification and security via Rexster Graph Server

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
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Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
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ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
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ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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