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DBMS > Microsoft Azure AI Search vs. Milvus vs. PostgreSQL vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure AI Search vs. Milvus vs. PostgreSQL vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft Azure AI Search  Xexclude from comparisonMilvus  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionSearch-as-a-service for web and mobile app developmentA DBMS designed for efficient storage of vector data and vector similarity searchesWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelSearch engineVector DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Search engine
Secondary database modelsVector DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score5.75
Rank#58  Overall
#7  Search engines
Score3.01
Rank#89  Overall
#4  Vector DBMS
Score644.36
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score5.97
Rank#56  Overall
#5  Search engines
Websiteazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­services/­searchmilvus.iowww.postgresql.orgsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­searchmilvus.io/­docs/­overview.mdwww.postgresql.org/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperMicrosoftPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerSphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release201520191989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2001
Current releaseV12.4.4, May 202416.4, August 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache Version 2.0Open Source infoBSDOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Zilliz Cloud – Cloud-native service for MilvusPostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.
Implementation languageC++, GoCC++
Server operating systemshostedLinux
macOS info10.14 or later
Windows infowith WSL 2 enabled
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesVector, Numeric and Stringyesno
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.nonoyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesyesnoyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLnonoyes infostandard with numerous extensionsSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsRESTful HTTP APIRESTful HTTP APIADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languagesC#
Java
JavaScript
Python
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnonouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.no
Triggersnonoyesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceShardingpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsnone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyBounded Staleness
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Session Consistency
Tunable Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanonoACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesno
User concepts infoAccess controlyes infousing Azure authenticationRole based access control and fine grained access rightsfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardno
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft Azure AI SearchMilvusPostgreSQLSphinx
Specific characteristicsMilvus is an open-source and cloud-native vector database built for production-ready...
» more
Competitive advantagesHighly available, versatile, and robust with millisecond latency. Supports batch...
» more
Typical application scenariosRAG: retrieval augmented generation Video media : video understanding, video deduplication....
» more
Key customersMilvus is trusted by thousands of enterprises, including PayPal, eBay, IKEA, LINE,...
» more
Market metricsAs of January 2024, 25k+ GitHub stars 10M+ downloads and installations​ ​ 3k+ enterprise...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsMilvus was released under the open-source Apache License 2.0 in October 2019. Fully-managed...
» more

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More resources
Microsoft Azure AI SearchMilvusPostgreSQLSphinx
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