DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL vs. XTDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL vs. XTDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

A general purpose database with bitemporal SQL and Datalog and graph queries

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.

Document store

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	941.20
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	615.29
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	0.00
Rank	#354	Overall
	#50	Document stores

Website

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

www.postgresql.org

github.com/xtdb/xtdb
xtdb.com

Technical documentation

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

www.postgresql.org/docs

xtdb.com/docs

Developer

Microsoft

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Juxt Ltd.

Initial release

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2019

Current release

SQL Server 2019, November 2019

14.3, May 2022

1.19, September 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

MIT License

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.

ScaleGrid for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL hosting on AWS, Azure and DigitalOcean with high availability and SSH access on the #1 multi-cloud DBaaS.

Implementation language

C++

Clojure

Server operating systems

Linux
Windows

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

All OS with a Java 8 (and higher) VM
Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, extensible-data-notation format

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

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

standard with numerous extensions

limited SQL, making use of Apache Calcite

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

HTTP REST
JDBC

Supported programming languages

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Clojure
Java

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

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

none

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

yes, each node contains all data

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

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, flexibel persistency by using storage technologies like Apache Kafka, RocksDB or LMDB

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

SQL Complete: An advanced IntelliSense-style code completion add-in for SSMS and Visual Studio. Write, beautify, refactor your SQL code and give your productivity a dramatic boost.
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Navicat for SQL Server gives you a fully graphical approach to database management and development.
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DbVisualizer is equipping database professionals with the tools they need to build, manage and maintain state-of-the-art database technologies. It has sky-high user satisfaction and is the preferred tool for database professionals around the world. Customers include Tesla, Apple, Facebook, Deutsche Bank, NASA, and 25,000 others in 145 countries.
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Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for SQL Server and many other database management systems.
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SQLFlow: Provides a visual representation of the overall flow of data. Automated SQL data lineage analysis across Databases, ETL, Business Intelligence, Cloud and Hadoop environments by parsing SQL Script and stored procedure.
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pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
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Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
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EDB: BigAnimal is fully-managed PostgreSQL in the cloud from the database fanatics at EDB.
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Percona: Database problems? Not on your watch.
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CYBERTEC is your professional partner for PostgreSQL services and Data Science since 2000. With offices in Austria, Uruguay, Estonia, Poland, South Africa and Switzerland, CYBERTEC operates worldwide and is here for you 24/7!
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DbVisualizer is equipping database professionals with the tools they need to build, manage and maintain state-of-the-art database technologies. It has sky-high user satisfaction and is the preferred tool for database professionals around the world. Customers include Tesla, Apple, Facebook, Deutsche Bank, NASA, and 25,000 others in 145 countries.
» more

Datasentinel: Platform for Monitoring and Analyzing the performance problems of your PostgreSQL Clusters
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Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
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SQLFlow: Provides a visual representation of the overall flow of data. Automated SQL data lineage analysis across Databases, ETL, Business Intelligence, Cloud and Hadoop environments by parsing SQL Script and stored procedure.
» more

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

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