SQL Server Review
SQL Server is an excellent relational database from Microsoft. If money was no object, I would use it all the time.
OVERVIEW
SQL Server is an excellent relational database from Microsoft. I default to using PostgreSQL because it is also very good... and free! But if money was no object, I'd default to using SQL Server for most use cases.
SQL Server is an excellent relational database from Microsoft. I default to using PostgreSQL because it is also very good... and free! But if money was no object, I'd default to using SQL Server for most use cases.
Pros
- It has columnstore indexes, which allows SQL Server to double as a respectable data warehouse.
- It has the ability to keep performance sensitive tables entirely in memory.
- It is fast, safe, reliable, and has a lot of online learning resources.
- It is readily available as a Docker image or through Microsoft's official download page.
- It has an excellent ecosystem of first party tools, such as SSMS, SSIS, SQL Server Profiler, SSDT, SSRS, SSAS, and SQL Server Agent.
- SQL Server is very popular and a lot of people know it well. This makes it relatively easy to recruit for.
Cons
- It is expensive. I have had conversations with IT managers at Fortune 500 companies who spend millions of dollars per year on SQL Server licenses. Phew.
- The SQL Server documentation is fine, but it is not a masterpiece of technical writing like the PostgreSQL documentation. Yes maybe I'm being dramatic. I don't care. @me.
- SQL Server is not open-source, so it doesn't have an extension ecosystem like PostgreSQL.
- The PostGIS extension makes PostgreSQL much more popular than SQL Server for geospatial use cases.