DBMS > MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. QuestDB vs. SQream DB vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison MariaDB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. QuestDB vs. SQream DB vs. Vertica

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

A high performance open source SQL database for time series data

a GPU-based, columnar RDBMS for big data analytics workloads

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	2.52
Rank	#109	Overall
	#9	Time Series DBMS

Score	0.70
Rank	#227	Overall
	#104	Relational DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

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

questdb.io

sqream.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

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

questdb.io/docs

docs.sqream.com

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

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

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Microsoft

QuestDB Technology Inc

SQream Technologies

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

1989

2014

2017

2005

Current release

11.3.2, February 2024

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

2022.1.6, December 2022

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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++

Java (Zero-GC), C++, Rust

C++, CUDA, Haskell, Java, Scala

C++

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

Linux
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

yes

schema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocol

yes

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, ANSI Standard SQL 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

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

SQL with time-series extensions

yes

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

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

HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol

.Net
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

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

PostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust

over HTTP

C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

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

user defined functions in Python

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

yes, called Custom Alerts

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

horizontal partitioning (by timestamps)

horizontal and vertical partitioning

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Source-replica replication with eventual consistency

none

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Bi-directional Spark integration

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

ACID for single-table writes

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

through memory mapped files

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
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Relational model with native time series support Column-based storage and time partitioned...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
» more

High ingestion throughput: peak of 4M rows/sec (TSBS Benchmark) Code optimizations...
» more

Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
» more

Financial tick data Industrial IoT Application Metrics Monitoring
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
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Banks & Hedge funds, Yahoo, OKX, Airbus, Aquis Exchange, Net App, Cloudera, Airtel,...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
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Licensing and pricing models

MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
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Open source Apache 2.0 QuestDB Enterprise QuestDB Cloud
» more

Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
» more

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