DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

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

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Relational DBMS

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Trend Chart

Score	788.14
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	3.48
Rank	#73	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Website

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

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

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

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Microsoft

Timescale

Initial release

1989

2017

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

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
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

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

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

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

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

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

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More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

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3 January 2020, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

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2 May 2017, Paul Andlinger

Microsoft SQL Server is the DBMS of the Year
4 January 2017, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

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Recent citations in the news

Microsoft SQL Server 2019 shuffles out of mainstream support
4 March 2025, The Register

SQL Server 2019 installation for Lab
27 January 2025, community.spiceworks.com

Ola Hallengren’s SQL Server Maintenance Solution in AWS
9 March 2025, AWS Blog

Announcing Microsoft SQL Server 2025: Enterprise AI-ready database from ground to cloud
19 November 2024, Microsoft

What Are the Best Tools for SQL Server Database Management?
10 March 2025, Built In

provided by Google News

Timescale Bolsters AI-Ready PostgreSQL with pgai Vectorizer
20 November 2024, InfoQ.com

Power IoT and time-series workloads with TimescaleDB for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
18 March 2019, Microsoft

PostgreSQL is Now Faster than Pinecone, 75% Cheaper, with New Open Source Extensions
11 June 2024, PR Newswire

How PostgreSQL Enhances Performance and Scalability in IoT Solutions
29 October 2024, IoT Business News

Timescale Valuation Rockets to Over $1B with $110M Round, Marking the Explosive Rise of Time-Series Data
22 February 2022, Business Wire

provided by Google News

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