DBMS > Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Access vs. Microsoft SQL Server

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Our visitors often compare Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server with MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

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.)

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	95.36
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	785.01
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/access

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

Technical documentation

developer.microsoft.com/en-us/access

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

Developer

Microsoft

Initial release

1992

1989

Current release

1902 (16.0.11328.20222), March 2019

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Bundled with Microsoft Office

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.

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++

Server operating systems

Windows

Not a real database server, but making use of DLLs

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

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

but not compliant to any SQL standard

yes

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
DAO
ODBC
OLE DB

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

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java (JDBC-ODBC)
VBA
Visual Basic.NET

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

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

Triggers

yes

since Access 2010 using the ACE-engine

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

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

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

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

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

but no files for transaction logging

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

but no files for transaction logging

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

a simple user-level security was built in till version Access 2003

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

MS Access drops in DB-Engines Ranking
2 May 2013, Paul Andlinger

Microsoft SQL Server regained rank 2 in the DB-Engines popularity ranking
3 December 2012, Matthias Gelbmann

New DB-Engines Ranking shows the popularity of database management systems
3 October 2012, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

show all

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

How to Fix Common Corruption Problems with Access Database
4 October 2024, TechSpective

Access Migration to Power Apps and Dataverse is released to General Availability
11 May 2022, Microsoft

MS patients in England to benefit from major roll out of take-at-home pill
12 March 2025, The Guardian

MS Access How To Control and Open a POS Cash Register Cash Drawer With VBA
19 January 2018, experts-exchange.com

MS access program to increase awareness and independence of those living with MS and disability
10 July 2023, Nebraska Medicine Omaha, NE

provided by Google News

How to Recover Deleted Data from SQL Server without Backup
22 April 2025, Infosecurity Magazine

Why SQL Server Is Still Worth It
24 March 2025, Redmondmag.com

The year ahead for SQL Server: Ground to cloud to fabric
15 January 2025, Microsoft

SQL Server 2019 installation for Lab
27 January 2025, Spiceworks Community

Powering up: Abusing Power Apps to compromise on-prem servers
22 April 2025, IBM

provided by Google News

Share this page