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DBMS > Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Sphinx vs. Virtuoso

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Sphinx vs. Virtuoso

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonVirtuoso  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionDatabase as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL ServerOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesVirtuoso is a multi-model hybrid-RDBMS that supports management of data represented as relational tables and/or property graphs
Primary database modelRelational DBMSSearch engineDocument store
Graph DBMS
Native XML DBMS
Relational DBMS
RDF store
Search engine
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score78.40
Rank#15  Overall
#10  Relational DBMS
Score6.03
Rank#60  Overall
#6  Search engines
Score4.20
Rank#83  Overall
#14  Document stores
#4  Graph DBMS
#2  Native XML DBMS
#45  Relational DBMS
#2  RDF stores
#9  Search engines
Websiteazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­products/­azure-sql/­databasesphinxsearch.comvirtuoso.openlinksw.com
Technical documentationdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­azure-sqlsphinxsearch.com/­docsdocs.openlinksw.com/­virtuoso
DeveloperMicrosoftSphinx Technologies Inc.OpenLink Software
Initial release201020011998
Current releaseV123.5.1, February 20237.2.11, September 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availableOpen Source infoGPLv2, extended commercial license available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageC++C++C
Server operating systemshostedFreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyes infoSQL - Standard relational schema
RDF - Quad (S, P, O, G) or Triple (S, P, O)
XML - DTD, XML Schema
DAV - freeform filesystem objects, plus User Defined Types a/k/a Dynamic Extension Type
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesnoyes
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.yesyes
Secondary indexesyesyes infofull-text index on all search fieldsyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)yes infoSQL-92, SQL-200x, SQL-3, SQLX
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocolADO.NET
GeoSPARQL
HTTP API
JDBC
Jena RDF API
ODBC
OLE DB
RDF4J API
RESTful HTTP API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SOAP webservices
SPARQL 1.1
WebDAV
XPath
XQuery
XSLT
Supported programming languages.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
.Net
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresTransact SQLnoyes infoVirtuoso PL
Triggersyesnoyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedyes
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes, with always 3 replicas availablenoneChain, star, and bi-directional replication
Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonoyes
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesnoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yes
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardnoFine-grained Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) in addition to typical coarse-grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) according to SQL-standard. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL AzureSphinxVirtuoso
Specific characteristicsVirtuoso is a modern multi-model RDBMS for managing data represented as tabular relations...
» more
Competitive advantagesPerformance & Scale — as exemplified by DBpedia and the LOD Cloud it spawned, i.e.,...
» more
Typical application scenariosUsed for — Analytics/BI Conceptual Data Virtualization Enterprise Knowledge Graphs...
» more
Key customersBroad use across enterprises and governments including — European Union (EU) US Government...
» more
Market metricsLargest installed-base ​of Multi-Model RDBMS for AI-friendly Knowledge Graphs Platform...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsAvailable in both Commercial Enterprise and Open Source (GPL v2) Editions Feature...
» more

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More resources
Microsoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL AzureSphinxVirtuoso
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