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Kinetica vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Kinetica
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
41st
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Kinetica is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.4%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.4%
Kinetica0.8%
Other88.8%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SunilAgarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Vice President and Global Head of Research and Development at Bqube Global
Easy to scale and good record to report capabilities but needs better training
It's not a very popular tool. There are very limited resources available in the market in terms of implementation. They need to offer training plans for graduates so that more resources are available in the market. The support needs to be faster. The solution needs to be lighter. It's a bit too heavy.
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution scales easily."
"Stability is one of the most valuable features."
"The performance is good and it's very easy to use."
"Stability and usability, which is quite simple, are two of the solution's most valuable features."
"It's a very good solution and I've been pretty happy with its capabilities."
"The latest version supports for big data analytics. SQL Server's vector processing-based batch execution mode is now available to the entire execution of R or Python code. Since much of the work that tends to be done in R and Python involves aggregation, batch mode - which processes rows of data several at a time, can be very helpful."
"The solution is very easy to use, because even the technical engineers that we get are able to use it more efficiently."
"The solution is valuable because it seamlessly extracts reports and enables the collection of information from different tables."
"We have been very satisfied with its capabilities over the last decade."
 

Cons

"There are very limited resources available in the market in terms of implementation. They need to offer training plans for graduates so that more resources are available in the market."
"We do not have much to complain about SS 2016 Dev Ed in itself, we do have some complaints regarding licensing for SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Ed."
"Every good tool has its own limitations. First of all its cost. It is very high."
"SQL Server could be more robust than one of its competitors."
"CAL licenses should cost less. Microsoft usually prices high for client access licenses. Server plus user client access license (CAL) licensing requires a separate Server license for each server on which the software is installed, plus a user CAL for each user accessing the server."
"Query optimitzer could be simplified."
"In the next releases, I would only like more enhanced backups and more restore points."
"I would like the SQL Server to be able to provide cloud support. We use the solution with a Korean provider supporting only MySQL rather than Microsoft SQL Server, which would be preferable and cheaper. This would prevent us from having to pay for troubleshooting and hosting the server."
"The free version is cumbersome to use and maintain. But $5000 for a licence is more expense than the benefit I would get from a licensed version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"This is a very cheap product."
"SQL Server offers three versions. You can get a free trial for 30 days."
"The setup cost is high, but it will return every penny."
"I don't need a license for it as I will be migrating to Office 365."
"There is an annual license and it is priced reasonably."
"Some of the licensing are very expensive, such as the Enterprise license."
"The cost is high and because it's an expensive product, we are in the process of moving towards open-source solutions."
"There is no licensing cost for SQL Server."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
36%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise118
 

Questions from the Community

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Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gsk, Defense Innovation Unit, Citibank, PubMatic,OVO
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and others in Relational Databases Tools. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.