DBMS > Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. OpenSearch vs. PostGIS vs. Sequoiadb vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. OpenSearch vs. PostGIS vs. Sequoiadb vs. TimescaleDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Fully managed big data interactive analytics platform

A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine forked from Elasticsearch and based on Apache Lucene

Spatial extension of PostgreSQL

NewSQL database with distributed OLTP and SQL

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

column oriented

Search engine

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

If a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types/dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store

this is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

support for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/time-series-analysis

Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

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

Score	3.80
Rank	#81	Overall
	#43	Relational DBMS

Score	16.03
Rank	#37	Overall
	#4	Search engines

Score	21.72
Rank	#29	Overall
	#1	Spatial DBMS

Score	0.50
Rank	#258	Overall
	#41	Document stores
	#120	Relational DBMS

Score	4.46
Rank	#71	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Website

azure.microsoft.com/services/data-explorer

github.com/opensearch-project
opensearch.org

postgis.net

www.sequoiadb.com

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer

opensearch.org/docs/latest

postgis.net/documentation

www.sequoiadb.com/en/index.php?m=Files&a=index

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Microsoft

Amazon Web Services

Sequoiadb Ltd.

Timescale

Initial release

2019

2021

2005

2013

2017

Current release

cloud service with continuous releases

2.5.0, January 2023

3.4.2, February 2024

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

Open Source

GPL v2.0

Open Source

Server: AGPL; Client: Apache V2

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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.

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Implementation language

Java

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

All OS with a Java VM

Linux

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

Fixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)

schema-free

Flexible type definitions. Once a type is defined, it is persistent

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

bool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types

yes

oid, date, timestamp, binary, regex

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

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

all fields are automatically indexed

yes

All search fields are automatically indexed

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

Kusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subset

SQL-like query language

yes

SQL-like query language

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

proprietary protocol using JSON

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Elasticsearch client

.Net
C++
Java
PHP
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Yes, possible languages: KQL, Python, R

yes

user defined functions

JavaScript

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

yes

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/management/updatepolicy

yes

by using the 'percolation' feature

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

yes

based on PostgreSQL

Sharding

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.

yes

based on PostgreSQL

Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Spark connector (open source): github.com/Azure/azure-kusto-spark

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Synchronous doc based replication. Get by ID may show delays up to 1 sec. Configurable write consistency: one, quorum, all

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Document is locked during a transaction

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.

User concepts

Access control

Azure Active Directory Authentication

yes

based on PostgreSQL

simple password-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

OpenSearch is a highly scalable and extensible open-source software suite for search,...
» more

Competitive advantages

Distributed as fully open source under Apache License, Version 2.0 (ALv2), OpenSearch...
» more

Typical application scenarios

The OpenSearch platform is used across a broad range of search , analytics, and observability...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

The OpenSearch Project offers open source software licensed under Apache License...
» more

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