DBMS > MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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Our visitors often compare MariaDB and Microsoft SQL Server with MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL.

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	93.61
Rank	#14	Overall
	#10	Relational DBMS

Score	774.89
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

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

Technical documentation

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

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

Developer

MariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server)

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Microsoft

Initial release

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

1989

Current release

11.5.2, August 2024

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

commercial

restricted free version is available

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.

STACKIT MariaDB offers MariaDB in a fully managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant.

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 and C++

C++

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

yes

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

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

Supported programming languages

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Eiffel
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

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

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

not for in-memory storage engine

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

with MEMORY storage engine

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

MariaDB strengthens its position in the open source RDBMS market
5 April 2018, Matthias Gelbmann

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2017
2 January 2018, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

Big gains for Relational Database Management Systems in DB-Engines Ranking
2 February 2016, Matthias Gelbmann

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MySQL is the DBMS of the Year 2019
3 January 2020, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

The struggle for the hegemony in Oracle's database empire
2 May 2017, Paul Andlinger

Microsoft SQL Server is the DBMS of the Year
4 January 2017, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

show all

Recent citations in the news

MariaDB CEO on database company regaining its mojo
24 March 2025, Blocks and Files

MariaDB reboots DBaaS plans with open source at the core
12 March 2025, theregister.com

Vector Storage, Indexing, and Search With MariaDB: What to Know About These New Features
28 January 2025, HackerNoon

K1 Acquires MariaDB, a Leading Database Software Company, and Appoints New CEO
10 September 2024, PR Newswire

MariaDB’s next move is a new CEO and a bold future
28 October 2024, Okoone

provided by Google News

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24 March 2025, Redmondmag.com

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15 January 2025, Microsoft

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