Solid and Reliable.
We use MSSQL Server along with SSIS and SSRS as it's a very competent software suite and very stable. It integrates well with other …
Starting at $1,418 Per License
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What is Microsoft SQL Server?
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database.
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| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database.
Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.9.
The most common users of Microsoft SQL Server are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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April 13, 2021
Good tool for data analysts
Microsoft SQL Server is used in our organization to store data, run analyses, and produce reports using data from our web-based application. It is mostly being used in the data analytics department and it allows the team to work on projects together and integrate with other software used in the organization.
- UI is user-friendly, making integration easy for all members of the team.
- It is easy to set up and teach to new members.
- Good support with third-party software.
- Cost can be expensive.
- Some learning curves for users transitioning from other services.
April 12, 2021
Microsoft SQL Server is an industry standard
SQL Server is used company-wide: All of our business data is stored in SQL databases and all of our applications utilize SQL in some capacity.
- Scales well
- Widespread usage means resources are more readily available.
- Reliable when configured and maintained properly.
- *Very* complex
- Performance can be poor when configuration isn't tweaked just right.
- System resource intensive, and some resources are capped by licensing.
- Upgrading to newer versions is difficult and time-consuming.
April 08, 2021
Good robust software for handling complex datasets
We use Microsoft SQL Server to store various databases that are used within both the whole company and also within certain departments. Data from these databases have front-end interfaces for easy editing by certain users and data also feeds into other systems and is merged with other data sources. It allows us to have a common silo for storing our data that helps developers and admin staff easily access the data for further use.
- Good range of data types helps us store lots of diverse data
- Easy administration helps us control who has access and what they can do with the data
- Backup and restore processes are easy to manage and provide good security
- Data can be easily replicated from Server to Server for use in other countries
- The import/export process can be tricky to follow with lots of steps and could be better for importing flat files
- Obtaining help from Microsoft is cumbersome and often other internet sources are better and quicker
- The documentation is not great and again it's generally better to obtain help elsewhere if needed
April 08, 2021
Gets the job done.
Microsoft SQL Server is being used across the company in mostly all IT and technical / data departments. Microsoft SQL Server allows us to pull data from different tables, manipulate it however we need, and use it elsewhere in the company. For example, I use Microsoft SQL Server to pull data from a different application and use it to make updates in Salesforce.
- Ease of use
- Intuitive
- Powerful
- None
Our company uses MS SQL Server to run jobs, store data and generates reports. Our team is supporting two separate companies and both use MS SQL Server. One is for storing data and running SSIS jobs for app and reporting purposes. These are company-owned servers and we are hosting other companies to provide service, application and hardware support for them.
Our company maintains these servers and they are being used by different departments, also internal company-wide. Business problems that we commonly encountered are mostly connection issues. These are basically a between network, database and applications connecting to MS SQL Server. The MS SQL Server support is easy to get in touch with when we are having issues with the application itself.
Our company maintains these servers and they are being used by different departments, also internal company-wide. Business problems that we commonly encountered are mostly connection issues. These are basically a between network, database and applications connecting to MS SQL Server. The MS SQL Server support is easy to get in touch with when we are having issues with the application itself.
- Maintenance, SQL server is easy to maintain.
- User Friendly, Easy to use and understand.
- Access, user access, and administration are very straightforward.
- Application, it is easy to setup and provide service.
- Can be used in small and enterprise sized clients.
- Support cost, need to pay for support.
- Compatibility with other new technologies.
- Reporting capabilities.
- Licensing, it is a lot of work to get licenses renewal
September 17, 2020
Excellent tool for enterprise data management
My department uses SQL Server (and Azure Data Studio, increasingly, but still primarily SQL Server) for database management and analysis. Other departments use it as well, including our QA team, to verify the expected output of data manipulation or the functionality of changes to the code base. It's a pretty standard tool at this point.
- Query analysis and execution plan details - You can see indexes you may be missing that would (if used) possibly improve performance of your stored procedures and queries.
- Data storage - It's easy to restore and back up entire databases and to set up automatic jobs to do this.
- Scheduled tasks - You can plan health checks or updates to data, or reports, from the Jobs tool.
- Unlike Visual Studio, there isn't a built-in or out-of-the-box way to format your SQL scripts/queries. You can easily install plugins and extensions to do this (paid or free) but it would be a nice-to-have.
- Occasionally it's not obvious from a query execution plan what piece is causing the most bottleneck, and even then, side-effects of implementing the suggested index(es) aren't always obvious.
March 02, 2020
Microsoft SQL from a happy database user
I consult for system and data integration projects. Many of my customers use SQL as their data management and storage system. During integration projects, I will also use SQL to store information that I need later in the integration process or for reporting purposes or auditing.
- Storing data in a de facto standard relational database.
- Industry proven connectors to the data.
- Options for hosted (Azure) to on-premise.
- Options for scalability from SQL Express to SQL clustering.
- Developers have their change list, however, it does what I need.
February 22, 2020
SQL Server -- Enterprise Data and Analytics in a Box
SQL Server is our go-to database for both on-prem and cloud database needs. We are running on-prem for 3rd party, custom applications, and the enterprise data warehouse. The Cloud is great for custom applications, as well as beginning to migrate to a data lake structure with Azure SQL DW. Other than embedded databases in a few apps, it is the only RDBMS technology we leverage, although we do run several different versions and editions (Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL DW, SQL Server 2016, 2017).
- It's easier to manage than other RDBMS.
- Good, mature, in-the-box interface for both development and administration.
- It has a fully extending feature set for managing Azure SQL DB to SSMS and/or Azure Data Studio.
- It's simplifying security/access setup for Azure SQL DB.
January 28, 2020
Microsoft SQL Server great for refining
I use Microsoft SQL Server to write SQL queries for my healthcare organization to do reporting for national quality metrics.
It allows me to write efficient, fast queries that export nicely to Excel.
- Error logging and indicators
- Colors keywords
- Allows for easy formatting
- Allows for multiple tabs
- Allows for multiple subqueries
- Needs more specific error messages
- Sometimes it seems "buggy" with the predictive text
- Needs an in application help resource that is easier to understand
January 20, 2020
Easy to use and set up, robust and reliable DBMS
In our database department, we use Microsoft SQL Server for storing data, data aggregation, and manipulation. We use Reporting services tools for creating, managing and deploying reports for our clients. For creating a report definition I personally used Report Builder which makes defining data source connections, queries used to retrieve data, expressions, parameters and others extremely easy to perform. We also try to improve the performance of stored procedures, user-defined functions, and triggers by learning the execution plan in detail. One of our clients has a web app for an insurance company and they have a large amount of data stored in the Microsoft SQL Server database. Our goal is to improve performance from queries that are used in that web app, so we try controlling execution plans with hints or adding indexes. In cases when we meet a new client who already has some database storage then we use replication technology for copying and distributing data and objects from one database to another. Besides that, we also help our clients to build parameterized queries in order to defend from SQL injection which is one of the most common web hacking techniques.
- It offers a lot of functionalities, such as Reporting Services, Integration Services, Job Scheduler, Resource Manager, Query Analyzer and Profiler, etc.
- You can connect it to Active Directory if you so desire.
- The price of the enterprise version could be a little lower and also licensing should be more understandable.
- There can be problems when connecting with software that is not owned by Microsoft.
We are using Microsoft SQL Server to store the data of many commercial and internal software applications: SAP Business One, our Point of Sale system installed in more than 60 branches around the country, several web and desktop applications, and our data warehouse used across the company. That represents thousands of transactions per day.
- Easy setup
- High performance and flexibility
- Data recovery
- Linked server functionality
December 09, 2019
SQL Server Serves Data Well
We currently use SQL Server in Azure which makes management easier, though I have used on-premises SQL Server for many years, many versions. I am Microsoft certified in SQL Server 2012 and 2014. As a software developer I like the way SQL Server is easy to program against -- especially when using Entity framework or Entity Framework Core as the middle ware. As a database administrator I like the fact that SQL Server is truly relational, which makes it much easier to model business objects as data tables and to manage Referential integrity, locking and consistency. I like its ability to help with performance scaling via pre-compiled queries, stored procedures and triggers. I like its ability to help with scaling via sharing and replication. But above all I love SSMS (SQL Server Management System) which brings together all the tools in one place with easy access to query plan tools and analysis tools as well as SSIS / SSRS allowing integration of data with other systems and generation of reports.
It has matured over the years into a tool that makes life easy for those architecting or writing systems.
It has matured over the years into a tool that makes life easy for those architecting or writing systems.
- Modeling and Schema creation
- Query optimization tools
- Integration with coding tools via Entity Framework etc.
- Analysis, integration and reporting tools
- Better handling of blobs so that they do not slow down queries (lazy loading by default perhaps)
- Automatic Migrations -- migrations are complex right now, tools that make it easier would be useful
- Cheaper!!! It is too expensive, forcing many people to go to datalakes/s3/NOSQL databases when they do not really want to
December 06, 2019
Hardcore Database For Hardcore Analytics
We are a Business Intelligence shop utilizing the entire Microsoft Data Stack. We use SQL Server versions 2012, 2014, 2017. We are also currently evaluating 2019. Our entire organization also uses SQL Server. In our department, it is used to ETL data in (via SSIS), store it into a Kimball Data Warehouse, do reporting off of it via SSRS, and then provide self serve analytics to our business users via SSAS. The best thing is that SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS are all included with SQL Server!
- Great integration tools via SSIS.
- Great reporting tools via SSRS.
- Great analytics tools via SSAS.
- Latest versions (2019) really push the envelope forward on automatic query optimization.
- Need to be careful on licensing and features. While they have done a great job in 2019 to make features available in standard edition, a lot of use cases may require the more expensive enterprise edition.
- SSIS and SSAS doesn't play well with source control.
- There is no "Data Virtualization" (Not talking about PolyBase) You should be able to spin up a clone of a database with minimal effort and storage space. No reason to have to pay a secondary company for such a vital feature!
November 07, 2019
A good tool for data exploration.
Microsoft SQL Server is the base of all of our in-house servers. We use it to access all of our internal and external data that comes from Verint and other places. It solves our need to store the data that we have in one location and to create a data warehouse on top of it.
- The workbench is very good. I like that you can explore multiple databases in one query window.
- Exploring data is very manageable compared to other SQL querying tools.
- Simple language to learn and very easy to transition from other SQL learned in other environments.
- IntelliSense slows down query writing. It sometimes freezes the query window.
- The data that you can copy-paste from the results is limited and I'd like to be able to copy-paste whatever I want.
- It isn't case sensitive, which isn't a problem until you get to reporting.
October 29, 2019
A helpful tool
IT uses it to design queries within our ERP platform, as requested by various stakeholders throughout operations. There are over 100 separate queries that are used daily.
I use it for various accounting reports, as I find it provides more of an exact "what I'm looking for" than the canned reporting available through the ERP.
- Able to zero down to a specific instance.
- Having new queries on separate pages eases going back and forth.
- The capability of changing databases quickly.
- Older versions had an auto-fill feature for columns that seems to have disappeared. That's why I prefer using the 2008 version.
October 17, 2019
Industry standard for databases
Microsoft SQL Server primarily serves as the back end of our core business system, which is built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV on the front end. Essentially everything our business does goes through this system, making access to the data crucial. While SQL Server is a required component of NAV, the system still needs to perform and be reliable all of the time. Luckily SQL Server is widely supported and time tested, allowing us to choose it with confidence.
- Support: Microsoft support and documentation make usage and maintenance worry-free.
- Performance: developers and admins have the ability to tune performance to meet their application needs.
- Prevalence: being an industry standard, compatibility and support are widespread.
- Learning curve: while SQL databases share many of the same concepts, admins and developers need to be familiar with the interface and quirks specific to SQL Server and the Management Studio.
- Cost: as with most enterprise software, especially from Microsoft, the investment needs to be considered.
- Required resources: both system resources and other considerations for maintenance and in-house support may be heavy compared to other solutions.
October 04, 2019
Microsoft SQL Server for small and medium scale companies
Microsoft SQL Server is being used by the whole organization. Our core OLTP database system is on the MS SQL Server.
- I think that Microsoft SQL Server is the best database software for small and medium-sized companies
- Microsoft SQL Server has a user-friendly interface for the database admins.
- Microsoft SQL Server is cheaper than other databases (like Oracle, etc.).
- Microsoft SQL Server is not suitable for big companies.
- Microsoft SQL Server has to improve with more transactions. If you have too many transactions on the database, there is no response from the database to the user.
- Microsoft SQL Server has to improve its big data technologies.
October 01, 2019
Well Established, Reliable DBMS That is Scalable and Compatible with Many Platforms and Languages
Microsoft SQL server is the official database management system for Microsoft, and it is a very reliable tool. Our team has a platform for analyzing city infrastructure which has multiple instances and a DBMS is crucial for managing all of the data. We use Microsoft SQL Server to check queries before publishing them to the live website. The tool is dependable and fairly straightforward to use, even for someone inexperienced with database management.
- The tool is scalable and able to handle large amounts of data.
- Microsoft SQL Server is compatible with many platforms and languages.
- It is reliable and has the backing of a large and well established company.
- The performance and speed of Microsoft SQL Server could possibly be improved.
- Better tools for monitoring databases and better interface for these tools would be helpful.
- Easier ways to create complex queries would make the tool even more user friendly, for instance drag and drop style tools to create queries.
September 23, 2019
This is basic and has most of the required tools in Data Analytics
In my company we use it project/account wise, Our main purpose to use it is because it has a very easy user interface and lots of internet communities for providing the solution.
- We used to merge the data from different sources. For this, it is very to do in SQL Server.
- Main times we used it to clean the data by reducing the unwanted rows and removing the delimited values.
- Creation of stored procedures are pretty much simple in it, and these created procedures are very handy and simple to create because syntax is very easy in it.
- There are no data visualization options available in it. For that, we need to connect it with different tools.
- No inbuilt statistical modules/formulas. We need to make our own.
- If data is more than 100 Columns and rows then it will definitely crash on its own.
September 12, 2019
The way to go for your database implementations
I use Microsoft SQL Server primarily as the back end database server to ASP.Net C# websites. For authentication and authorization, the database uses tables and stored procedures to implement membership or identity for user login and defining roles. Of course, the database is used to hold data entities for the needs of the website. Use of stored procedures, views, and sequences full-text indexing are just some of the useful features I take advantage of.
- Speed of selects with appropriate indexes.
- Use through C# of Linq queries to the data.
- Ability to use CLR assemblies to program in C#.
- Replication to keep the database mirrored to another server.
- I sure wish the T-SQL language was more like C# - it's really primitive.
- I would like an easy way to pass an array to stored procedures and a way to iterate through the array in the code.
- Integrated source control for the database would be appreciated.
September 12, 2019
Best DBMS solution for professionals as well as beginners
Microsoft SQL Server is being used as the default database management solution. It is used across the whole organization and is responsible for managing different types of databases such as ERP, Spatial and regular ones. SQL server caters to regular reports generation, establish relational queries between different datasets, provide backup in case of any issues.
- Microsoft SQL Server has a very user-friendly interface. It is a breeze to create and schedule jobs for data reporting and updates.
- The online community support and the numerous forums for Microsoft SQL Server are really handy in case of any issues.
- Microsoft SQL Server supports Spatial Databases which is a critical requirement for an organization like ours.
- It would be great if working with SSIS packages would be much more streamlined in the Microsoft SQL Server. As of now, the only option is to use Visual Studio which in itself is not very forthcoming in how to work with a package.
- The version upgrade can be a bit of nuisance in case you have different databases created on different versions of Microsoft SQL Server. The version compatibility for different databases can definitely be improved upon.
September 10, 2019
Microsoft SQL Server is a Great Enterprise Database Option
Microsoft SQL Server is our primary data storage for our in house software as well as 3rd party financial software and provides the data for all of our enterprise reporting. We also leverage the additional services that come with Microsoft SQL Server including SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Integration Services.
- Extremely Reliable - We have not had an instance of SQL Server itself having issues or causing downtime. We have had AWS hardware failures but not Microsoft SQL Server failures.
- Total Cost of Ownership - Having Enterprise Edition provides us with the additional features of SQL Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Integration Services, and if we would like, SQL Server Analytics Services.
- Multiple disaster recovery options - You can use mirroring (replaced by Always On Availability Groups), replications and log shipping to name a few options.
- Elastic Database options - You can have a mix of on-premises and Azure instances if your use case requires it.
- Easy Manageability - Microsoft has done a great job of making the management of Microsoft SQL Server easier with every release.
- In-Memory Database options - You can have in-memory tables for any business case needing that level of performance.
- While I really like their disaster recovery options, they could make them more affordable and easier to implement. Always On-Availability Groups is improving with every edition but still can come with some gotcha's if you do not watch it. Including Security across instances, jobs across instances, etc.
- In memory, at least in 2014, once you enable it that is it. You cannot go back. This makes it difficult to retire this feature.
- Better native Enterprise management meaning, in a use case where you may have multiple servers or clusters with multiple instances the native tools are lacking and typically require purchasing 3rd party tools or building out tools for monitoring and managing the servers and databases.
September 10, 2019
Easy to implement this complete set of tools
It is used as a data warehousing and business intelligence platform across the whole organization.
- Troubleshooting is easy because of several forums available on the internet. We can Google error messages and find solutions easily.
- It has a complete set of tools for data warehousing and business intelligence, so integration and automation are easy.
- Easy access to training and skilled workforce availability.
- There are some in-memory tools in the market that I have used to replace analysis services. Those in-memory tools have reduced the aggregation time to a few minutes as compared to a couple of hours on analysis services.
- Mobile apps for SSMS and SQL agent would be a good addition to the toolbelt.
- A built-in SQL source code control tool that can be used to track code changes and schema changes from SSMS would be very useful. It should easily show who made the changes, what changes were made and when, and provide an option to roll back to any of the previous versions if needed.
July 30, 2019
Keeps my information safe without corrupting
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We have used SQL Server for years, and it has been our main database for desktop projects. It also has been the database engine to choose when developing financial applications for its speed and security. We also use it when working with complex data and a variety of fields.
- It is quick and easy to create data and tables using their built-in aid, and it has a wide variety of fields.
- We like to correctly support stored procedures which facilitates processes and enriches functions within the application and can delegate more responsibility to the database.
- It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft applications, such as Visual Studio in addition to many other third-party applications either natively or by means of ODBC connectors.
- Can manage user permissions easily.
- The installation may take longer than expected.
- It requires a lot of resources for its implementation.
May 14, 2019
Microsoft Database
We currently use Microsoft SQL Server, integrated with Automation Anywhere, to develop automation scripts. We opted for SQL Server for its Microsoft support and native Automation Anywhere functions that allow us to work with this Database.
- SQL Server, because it is Microsoft, has the support of the company, and it is possible to integrate with thousands of applications that run on windows.
- The price of the paid version of SQL Server is well below the market average, although we do not lose in quality.
- It allows the developer to use a managed programming language, such as C # or VB.NET, to address queries, rather than using SQL statements.
- The main point that displeased me most in SQL Server 2008 is the lack of intelligence of the tools.
- Since Microsoft decided to support the creation of stored procedures and other database objects in .NET framework languages it seems that T-SQL has been a bit sideways.
- Difficult to mount a cluster, mirroring, replication...