DBMS > Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Weaviate

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	1.73
Rank	#143	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

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

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

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

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Microsoft

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2014

1989

2019

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

yes

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

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

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

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

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

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

Triggers

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

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

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
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Licensing and pricing models

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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