DBMS > Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimesTen
System Properties Comparison Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimesTen
| Editorial information provided by DB-Engines | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name | Microsoft Access Xexclude from comparison | Microsoft Azure SQL Database  formerly SQL Azure Xexclude from comparison | Microsoft SQL Server Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | TimesTen Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | 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.) | Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server | Microsofts flagship relational DBMS | Widely used open source RDBMS Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL | In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary database model | Relational DBMS | Relational DBMS | Relational DBMS | Relational DBMS with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module. | Relational DBMS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Document store Graph DBMS Spatial DBMS | Document store Graph DBMS Spatial DBMS | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access | azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database | www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server | www.postgresql.org | www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access | docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql | learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server | www.postgresql.org/docs | docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Microsoft | Microsoft | Microsoft | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 1992 | 2010 | 1989 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | 1998 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019 | V12 | SQL Server 2022, November 2022 | 16.2, February 2024 | 11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | commercial Bundled with Microsoft Office | commercial | commercial restricted free version is available | Open Source BSD | commercial | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud-based only Only available as a cloud service | no | yes | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) Database as a Service Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed. | Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Implementation language | C++ | C++ | C++ | C | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server operating systems | Windows Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs | hosted | Linux Windows | FreeBSD HP-UX Linux NetBSD OpenBSD OS X Solaris Unix Windows | AIX HP-UX Linux OS X Solaris SPARC/x86 Windows | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | yes | yes | yes | 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 | yes | yes specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality. | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary indexes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SQL Support of SQL | yes but not compliant to any SQL standard | yes | yes | yes standard with numerous extensions | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | ADO.NET DAO ODBC OLE DB | ADO.NET JDBC ODBC | ADO.NET JDBC ODBC OLE DB Tabular Data Stream (TDS) | ADO.NET JDBC native C library ODBC streaming API for large objects | JDBC ODBC ODP.NET Oracle Call Interface (OCI) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supported programming languages | C C# C++ Delphi Java (JDBC-ODBC) VBA Visual Basic.NET | .Net C# Java JavaScript (Node.js) PHP Python Ruby | C# C++ Delphi Go Java JavaScript (Node.js) PHP Python R Ruby Visual Basic | .Net C C++ Delphi Java JDBCJavaScript (Node.js) Perl PHP Python Tcl | C C++ Java PL/SQL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | yes since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine | Transact SQL | Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java | user defined functions realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc. | PL/SQL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Triggers | yes since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine | yes | yes | yes | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Partitioning methods Methods for storing different data on different nodes | none | tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation | partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash | none | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Replication methods Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes | none | yes, with always 3 replicas available | yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition | Source-replica replication other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions | Multi-source replication Source-replica replication | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | no | no | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consistency concepts Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transaction concepts Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data | ACID but no files for transaction logging | ACID | ACID | ACID | ACID | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes but no files for transaction logging | yes | yes | yes | yes by means of logfiles and checkpoints | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-memory capabilities Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only. | yes | no | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User concepts Access control | no a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003 | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Microsoft Access | Microsoft Azure SQL Database formerly SQL Azure | Microsoft SQL Server | PostgreSQL | TimesTen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DB-Engines blog posts | MS Access drops in DB-Engines Ranking Microsoft SQL Server regained rank 2 in the DB-Engines popularity ranking New DB-Engines Ranking shows the popularity of database management systems | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2020 Cloud-based DBMS's popularity grows at high rates The popularity of cloud-based DBMSs has increased tenfold in four years | MySQL is the DBMS of the Year 2019 The struggle for the hegemony in Oracle's database empire Microsoft SQL Server is the DBMS of the Year | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023 Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Recent citations in the news | Abusing Microsoft Access "Linked Table" Feature to Perform NTLM Forced Authentication Attacks Hackers Exploit Microsoft Access Feature to Steal Windows User’s NTLM Tokens MS access program to increase awareness and independence of those living with MS and disability After installing Navisworks, Office 2016 (32-bit) applications stopped launching ACCDE File (What It Is and How to Open One) provided by Google News | Copilot in Azure SQL Database in Private Preview Microsoft unveils Copilot for Azure SQL Database Why migrate Windows Server and SQL Server to Azure: ROI, innovation, and free offers Azure SQL Database takes Saturday off on US east coast following network power failure Microsoft Announces a New Azure SQL Database Free Offer in Public Preview provided by Google News | Data Virtualization in SQL Server 2022 Why migrate Windows Server and SQL Server to Azure: ROI, innovation, and free offers How to deploy a SQL Server failover cluster with Amazon EBS Multi-Attach on Windows Server | Amazon Web Services SolarWinds upgrades free Plan Explorer tool for enhanced SQL Server analysis How to Know When It's Time for a Microsoft SQL Server Upgrade provided by Google News | AGEDB Technology Launches PGTS - PostgreSQL Tech-Support PostgreSQL Security Flaws Let Attackers Execute Code Introducing OCI Database with PostgreSQL: Completing Our Cloud Database Suite for Every Need Automatically Generate Types for Your PostgreSQL Database Your MySQL 5.7 and PostgreSQL 11 databases will be automatically enrolled into Amazon RDS Extended Support ... provided by Google News | In-memory databases with Emulex Gen 7 provided by Google News | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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