DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Postgres-XL vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Postgres-XL vs. PostgreSQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Based on PostgreSQL enhanced with MPP and write-scale-out cluster features

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	920.09
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	0.91
Rank	#242	Overall
	#113	Relational DBMS

Score	617.90
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Website

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

www.postgres-xl.org

www.postgresql.org

Technical documentation

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

www.postgres-xl.org/documentation

www.postgresql.org/docs

Developer

Microsoft

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Initial release

1989

2014

since 2012, originally named StormDB

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

10 R1, October 2018

15.3, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Mozilla public license

Open Source

BSD

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
Windows

Linux
macOS

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

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

XML type, but no XML query functionality

yes

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

distributed, parallel query execution

yes

standard with numerous extensions

APIs and other access methods

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

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

Supported programming languages

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Erlang
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

horizontal partitioning

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

MVCC

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

3rd parties

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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

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Conferences and events

more DBMS events

PGCon 2023, PostgreSQL Conference for Users and Developers
Ottawa, Canada, 30 May 2023 - 2 June 2023

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