DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Sphinx vs. Vertica vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Sphinx vs. Vertica vs. Weaviate

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	5.95
Rank	#55	Overall
	#5	Search engines

Score	10.06
Rank	#42	Overall
	#26	Relational DBMS

Score	1.52
Rank	#153	Overall
	#6	Vector DBMS

Website

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

sphinxsearch.com

www.vertica.com

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

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

sphinxsearch.com/docs

vertica.com/documentation

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Microsoft

Sphinx Technologies Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

1989

2001

2005

2019

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

3.5.1, February 2023

12.0.3, January 2023

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial licence available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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

FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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

full-text index on all search fields

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query language (SphinxQL)

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

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

Proprietary protocol

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

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

C++

unofficial client library
Java
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby

unofficial client library

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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

Sharding

Partitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

none

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual 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

The original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
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Competitive advantages

Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenarios

Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
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Key customers

Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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All companies that have data.
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Market metrics

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
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Licensing and pricing models

Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
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