We performed a comparison between IBM Db2 Database and SQL Server based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: IBM Db2 Database has an edge in this comparison due to the high marks it received for its performance. Reviewers are happier with the pricing of SQL Server, however.
"Your iOS, your throughputs, your performance cycles, you cannot touch it with Microsoft or with Oracle scalability-wise. That is far and away the most scalable systems and the highest performing systems of the set of them."
"It's a very mature product."
"I like that its true active-active. For example, if there are two instances within a cluster, we can take one of them down and there's no failover or switch over. There's no primary and secondary, it's true active-active. We can take one side down and we can upgrade that with new maintenance or a new version, obviously testing coexistence beforehand, without impacting the business."
"It's very secure."
"Db2's best features are that it's self-maintaining and self-monitoring, which means I have to view and monitor the database far less often."
"The most valuable feature of the IBM Db2 Database is the ease of use, and the ability to do query writing of any SQL statement and have an output."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"It has a good, stable performance."
"The most valuable features of SQL Server are the speed, great support, and it is from a known vendor."
"Its security is good. The GUI of SQL Server is also very good."
"For me, the initial setup is very easy as I have years of experience with the product."
"The technical support that Microsoft provides is great."
"SQL is very easy to manage."
"I use the menu on the management view credit section to get information from the database."
"I've been using SQL Server for 20 years, and there is nothing that it can't do. It is awesome."
"The license fee is very low."
"I would like to see some artificial intelligence brought into the solution."
"IBM's products tend to be quite costly, especially given the availability of free, open-source alternatives."
"IBM Db2 Database could improve in the steps it takes for upgrades. It is not an easy process. The process of upgrading the version is lengthy and requires a lot of time. To make it more efficient, I suggest implementing some automation on the solution side. This will greatly reduce the time required for the upgrade."
"There could be more user-friendly tools with features such as drag-and-drop functionality, visual basics, and low-code capabilities."
"The management of Db2 should be simplified because there are not too many specialists in this area, and the learning curve of Db2 specialists is very long. After the courses, probably it takes one and a half or two years to get to the point when you are using the product properly in the production systems. So, the complexity is very high, and the most important thing is to simplify the management of the product, including self-maintenance. They should simplify the installation, management, and monitoring to simplify the product. It takes too long for a person to be a specialist in this product."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered backup functionality. Many similar tools already do, which means Db2 is somewhat behind the curve in terms of what a customer might expect from it."
"It would be helpful to have more querying tools and more development tools for us to work easily with Microsoft."
"IBM Db2 Database could improve with better security."
"Right now we don't get much technical support from Microsoft"
"The licensing costs are very high."
"The performance degrades when the data is huge."
"The performance is not always the best."
"The stability of the solution should be improved in the next release. Sometimes it is great, sometimes it is troublesome. I would also like data conversion and the code pages to be a bit more straightforward."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"The solution could be more secure."
"For a big amount of data, when we are speaking about IoT Segments, and Big Data projects, there are performance issues."
IBM Db2 Database is ranked 6th in Relational Databases Tools with 67 reviews while SQL Server is ranked 1st in Relational Databases Tools with 260 reviews. IBM Db2 Database is rated 8.2, while SQL Server is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of IBM Db2 Database writes "Very scalable with high availability and excellent technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SQL Server writes "Easy to use and provides good speed and data recovery". IBM Db2 Database is most compared with Oracle Database, SAP HANA, Teradata, MySQL and Oracle Database In-Memory, whereas SQL Server is most compared with MariaDB, SAP HANA, Oracle Database, LocalDB and Teradata. See our IBM Db2 Database vs. SQL Server report.
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