Top SQL Server Alternatives & Competitors For 2024

SQL Server continues to be a popular choice for database management, with user reviews highlighting both its strengths and weaknesses. Reliability and performance remain key selling points. Users praise its stability, speed, and ability to handle demanding workloads, making it a trusted choice for mission-critical applications. However, licensing costs can be a significant barrier, especially for larger deployments compared to open-source alternatives like PostgreSQL. Security is another forte, with users appreciating its multi-layered approach to protecting sensitive data. However, its complexity can be daunting, requiring specialized skills for administration and maintenance, particularly in larger environments. While Azure SQL Managed Instance offers managed cloud services, some users find on-premises deployments less flexible for cloud migration. Users acknowledge its rich set of tools and features, including SSMS, SSDT, and SSRS, for efficient database management, development, and analysis. Yet, they recognize vendor lock-in as a potential drawback, as switching to other systems can be challenging due to its proprietary nature and T-SQL language. Overall, SQL Server's reliability, performance, and security are highly valued. However, its cost, complexity, and limited cloud flexibility are common concerns. Users compare it favorably to PostgreSQL for affordability and open-source nature, while acknowledging its less mature feature set. Oracle Database is seen as a competitor for large-scale enterprise deployments, but users note its even higher cost and complexity. Ultimately, the choice comes down to specific needs and priorities. For users prioritizing reliability, security, and integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, SQL Server remains a compelling option. However, those seeking flexibility, lower costs, or open-source options might find PostgreSQL or other alternatives more attractive.

MicroStrategy is a patchwork quilt of products on the web, desktop and mobile. There’s MicroStrategy Library where you can access published content and Auto Express for dashboarding and bot creation. Anyone with basic data skills can feed information to a bot and gain insights in seconds.You don’t need a credit card to sign up for the free trial, but you won’t be able to publish content to the server without a paid upgrade. As for choosing which edition to use, there’s the web and the desktop instance. Which one will suit you? Maybe both?MicroStrategy Workstation is for developers and data analysts and is more robust for manipulating data. It provides administrative control, even when offline, and helps prototype content before it goes live. Combining multiple visualizations on a single page provided me with more context for the same data.On the other hand, the Workstation version lacks the same level of natural language processing as the web version.MicroStrategy Web is for delivering content to your clients. Being online, it’s open to seamless upgrades and customization, and identity management and collaboration are built in. If you have a small organization, the web version might suffice, but you might want to consider going for both if you deal with large data volumes.Metadata mapping was immensely useful to me when designing a bot using MicroStrategy Auto Express. All I needed to do was feed it the data, and it generated a slew of questions I might want to ask.With a semantic layer, Microstrategy is among the BI tools that work best with large data warehouses. If you’ve just started in business or haven’t got large data volumes yet, you might want to consider a simpler tool.An oft-repeated sentiment in user reviews was that this motley crew of products — web, desktop and mobile — didn’t always sync. The vendor positions MicroStrategy One as a unified solution that’ll, hopefully, eliminate these annoyances.On the flip side, quite a few users said it could be clunky for inexperienced users. Also, some reviewers said it slowed on occasion. Most people said the solution was expensive and found its learning curve quite steep.In summary, MicroStrategy is worth considering, especially if you’re a medium or large-sized company looking for a web reporting tool with a user-friendly interface.

Users appreciate how Sisense creates large datasets from constantly evolving data sources to be seamlessly streamlined into actionable data, and presented easily in the form of graphs, bar and pie charts, scattergrams, line graphs, interactive maps and many more visualization types. Regarding customer support, users praise their prompt and informative responses - from implementation to handling subsequent queries — as high quality customer service that comes neatly packaged with pricing plans. Users mention that the implementation of this solution, though easy for basic setup, can be quite demanding in terms of scripting and configuration setup, especially for advanced analytics. Non-technical users might find it challenging to set up the data objects - ElastiCubes - without strong IT support. On the front-end, dashboard customization and formatting of visualizations can be tricky as these require basic knowledge of CSS, Javascript and development. Though a large number of users find this solution to be cost-effective, smaller businesses and startups that only need a limited number of licenses might find it expensive. Overall, Sisense is a strong BI solution with strong data capabilities, and its drill-down functionality empowers users to glean insightful and actionable analytics that drive business strategy by aiding in decision-making processes. To maximize its potential, businesses may require strong IT support for implementation and formatting of visualizations. It is certainly worth considering for enterprise BI needs, if the price is right!

Looker is a forerunner in the business intelligence field for a reason; it generates reports that include easy sharing via link, automatic scheduling and a level of granular detail that allows for deeper analysis below the surface. It excels in its filter and drill-down features and creates unique URLs when users make changes to data, leading to enhanced sharing. However, one of its biggest strengths could also be considered one of its biggest weaknesses: its proprietary programming language, LookML which is used to construct SQL queries in the platform. While a flexible and powerful data querying language, of course, LookML isn’t the most accessible to non-technical users, which means that Looker requires an IT or data team to access its full capabilities and has a steep learning curve. Users also note that its data visualizations, while simple and easy to understand, are quite basic and lacking in customization options, particularly in comparison to competitors. Some users say that it may be more appropriate for internal reporting than presentation to shareholders and end-users because of its bare-bones visualization options. However, Looker truly shines when used by enterprises, with its scalability and data accessibility making it a stellar solution that can align departments and provide thousands of users access to data insights. Its price point reflects this, with its pricing being prohibitive to startups as about 88% of users who comment on its cost remark. Overall, Looker is a solid pick for larger businesses that have a team of power users who can maximize its functionality and set it up to deliver to employees across an entire organization.

Qlik Sense focuses on independent data analysis for enterprises with advanced tools that include AI, natural language processing and automation. User reviews praise it for its associative engine, interactive visualizations and sophisticated analytics.Its dataset-linking functionality gets my vote as the most significant differentiator since it makes data modeling seamless and saves time. In comparison, manually linking tables in Tableau and Power BI feels like a huge task.It supports fewer features out of the box (69%) compared to Tableau (72%) and Power BI (74%), but this could be intentional. Qlik has ready-to-go modules for analytics, automation and printing, so keeping it lean is a smart vendor move. Users should be aware that additional modules will cost extra, though.Qlik Sense SaaS is multi-cloud, so unless the admin assigns separate workspaces, your users won’t be able to create personal dashboards — everything is shared otherwise. Some users said the platform slowed when processing large workloads, which is a common issue with many other platforms. Assess your need for speed before committing to a purchase.If upgrading from QlikView, you’ll need to create new objects initially, as both platforms have different architectures. However, the vendor assists in seamless migration with the Qlik Analytics Modernization program.Overall, Qlik Sense is an efficient platform that offers many analysis capabilities worth considering. We recommend checking it out if you’re looking for an alternative to Power BI, entrenched in Microsoft technology, or Tableau, with its emphasis on visualization.