Grist vs. Microsoft SQL Server

This is well suited to someone (or a team) who are technically minded and have a dataset that they need to be able to use in many ways. It's less appropriate for a team who isn't technically minded and/or don't have the data they need to manipulate. It would be useful for things that you could use a database or spreadsheet for such as CRM, Advertising database, Business tracking, Health tracking etc.

Incentivized

Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.

Incentivized

• Provides amazing customer service, help, examples, and explains what they are having you do
• The layout is easy

• Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
• Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
• Data Security
• Easy to understand and use
• Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script

Incentivized

• Making the user permissions more obvious on how to use them - They are highly adaptable, but hard to understand how to use them
• Small changes such as auto colouring the choices/toggles options and being able to edit them once set.
• Being able to copy the formatting from one column to the next

Incentivized

• Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
• Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
• It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.

Incentivized

We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.

Incentivized

SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.

Incentivized

Its does not have outages.

Incentivized

SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.

Incentivized

We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.

Incentivized

It was good

Incentivized

very hands on and detailed training

Incentivized

Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.

Incentivized

Grist is easier to use, faster, and loads quicker with heavy data.

[Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.

Incentivized

SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.

Incentivized

• It's saved a lot of time in both creating an advertising database and managing it week to week effectively. I had previously created in others that haven't worked, and this does, saving me a good 1 hour weekly, and 5 hours or more each time I had problems with the last ones
• Being able to stay on track with this has meant I'm following up at the right time (advertisers) and keeping a professional manner and not losing business due to missed communication
• Saving me $ from buying a program like Access (or Airtable monthly) and then the learning curve that that has. This has a much easier learning curve to say the least.

Incentivized

• Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
• Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
• Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.

Incentivized