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DBMS > Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. QuestDB vs. Snowflake vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. QuestDB vs. Snowflake vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  Xexclude from comparisonQuestDB  Xexclude from comparisonSnowflake  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFully managed big data interactive analytics platformA high performance open source SQL database for time series dataCloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured dataOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infocolumn orientedTime Series DBMSRelational DBMSSearch engine
Secondary database modelsDocument store infoIf 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 infothis 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 infosupport 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 infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorer/­time-series-analysis
Relational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score5.82
Rank#65  Overall
#37  Relational DBMS
Score2.69
Rank#115  Overall
#8  Time Series DBMS
Score125.38
Rank#9  Overall
#6  Relational DBMS
Score6.06
Rank#61  Overall
#6  Search engines
Websiteazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorerquestdb.iowww.snowflake.comsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorerquestdb.io/­docsdocs.snowflake.net/­manuals/­index.htmlsphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperMicrosoftQuestDB Technology IncSnowflake Computing Inc.Sphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release2019201420142001
Current releasecloud service with continuous releases3.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache 2.0commercialOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnoyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageJava (Zero-GC), C++, RustC++
Server operating systemshostedLinux
macOS
Windows
hostedFreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)yes infoschema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocolyes infosupport of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)yes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyes infobool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-typesyesyesno
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.yesnoyes
Secondary indexesall fields are automatically indexednoyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLKusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subsetSQL with time-series extensionsyesSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsMicrosoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languages.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
C infoPostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust infoover HTTP
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresYes, possible languages: KQL, Python, Rnouser defined functionsno
Triggersyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicynono infosimilar concept for controling cloud resourcesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud servicehorizontal partitioning (by timestamps)yesSharding 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 service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.Source-replica replication with eventual consistencyyesnone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsSpark connector (open source): github.com/­Azure/­azure-kusto-sparknonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanoACID for single-table writesACIDno
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.noyes infothrough memory mapped filesno
User concepts infoAccess controlAzure Active Directory AuthenticationUsers with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authenticationno
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft Azure Data ExplorerQuestDBSnowflakeSphinx
Specific characteristicsRelational model with native time series support Column-based storage and time partitioned...
» more
Competitive advantagesHigh ingestion throughput: peak of 4M rows/sec (TSBS Benchmark) Code optimizations...
» more
Typical application scenariosFinancial tick data Industrial IoT Application Metrics Monitoring
» more
Key customersBanks & Hedge funds, Yahoo, OKX, Airbus, Aquis Exchange, Net App, Cloudera, Airtel,...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsOpen source Apache 2.0 QuestDB Enterprise QuestDB Cloud
» more
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