DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. ScyllaDB vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. ScyllaDB vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

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

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Wide column store

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

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

Score	829.80
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	5.27
Rank	#67	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	4.87
Rank	#74	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Website

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

www.scylladb.com

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

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

docs.scylladb.com

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Microsoft

ScyllaDB

Timescale

Initial release

1989

2015

2017

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

ScyllaDB Open Source 5.4.1, January 2024

2.13.0, November 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

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

yes

cluster global secondary indices

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

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

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

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

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes, Lua

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

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

Sharding

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

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

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
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Typical application scenarios

ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
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Market metrics

ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
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Licensing and pricing models

ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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