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Citus Data vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

Citus Data
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
3
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) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Citus Data is 2.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.6%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.6%
Citus Data2.2%
Other87.2%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Arucy Lionel - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder at Afriziki
Efficiently handles high-traffic scenarios and compatible with PostgreSQL extensions, offering flexibility in database management
There are many areas of improvement , especially in terms of DDL query routing. Even though it's masterless, DDL queries need to be sent to the coordinator node. Also, setting up a multi-node environment could be more straightforward. Currently, setting up a multi-node environment is challenging. It's a bit tricky. Installation on each PostgreSQL node can lead to communication issues between nodes. An automatic rebalancing feature would be a significant improvement. Currently, I have to manually command the rebalance. It would be more convenient if it was rebalanced automatically. The dashboard and monitoring capabilities are good, but it would be helpful to have an integrated availability dashboard.
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

"It's very straightforward to implement the solution. It took us two days to set up everything."
"The solution is competitive with Mongo, MySQL, and maybe even Oracle."
"Its distributed processing capabilities are a standout feature. It requires minimal changes to get up and running if you already have a system on PostgreSQL. Citus can run in its natural state."
"You can use Citus Data to write complex scripts. I like its version upgrades and disaster recovery as well."
"I haven't really experienced any issues that required the assistance of technical support."
"It's a good learning environment, it's easy enough to learn and understand. Anybody that picks up the language early on will be able to develop in it."
"Of course, one thing is that as great with this and other Microsoft products is that it's quite well documented and there are also light versions available."
"I like the stability of the solution, the fact that you have two, three, four nodes replicating at any given time at different locations, and they're all synchronized; if one is lost it automatically moves to another."
"I love SQL Server's Common Table Expression, and in addition to that, I like its lead and lag functions, which helped us reduce a lot of code when comparing rows in SQL Server."
"From my point of view, using SQL Server 2017 and 2019 is very good."
"The solution offers very good performance and is pretty reliable; the stability is excellent, there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"This is the main database for our financial system."
 

Cons

"Citus Data needs to improve its stability. Do not consider this product if you have the budget. It is still developing and has a lot of issues."
"There are many areas of improvement , especially in terms of DDL query routing. Even though it's masterless, DDL queries need to be sent to the coordinator node. Also, setting up a multi-node environment could be more straightforward."
"More features in monitoring and the reporting could make it better."
"They need to improve their support. It should be faster."
"They can build more performance-tuning tools in it. They can also make the stuff a little more user-friendly and provide the ability to schedule jobs. They can perhaps also streamline it a little bit so that it is not so resource-intensive, which would be helpful. SQL Server has a tendency to consume all the memory you allow it to. If you are not careful, you can basically break your server. I would like to see it having a smaller footprint in terms of system resource consumption. They might want to consider re-evaluating their pricing. It is expensive."
"Linux-based editions are not yet proven to be on par with Windows deployments."
"Integration Services: There is a great deal of room for improvement here in that the packages are the least extensible part of the platform."
"The pricing could be more affordable."
"Technical support could be better."
"The remote access aspect needs to be improved in terms of security."
"The upgrades are unstable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Citus Data is an open-source product."
"We did a one-time payment. Its price, in general, can be reduced."
"I know the SQL Server pricing model, I believe, is based on CPU cores that your database server has, but I don't know what the solution's prices are though."
"Historically, SQL Server has been much more affordable than Oracle, which is overpriced."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"The licenses are purchased annually."
"The licensing is on an annual basis."
"This solution is available at a much lower price point than Oracle."
"With recent releases, the Standard Edition (cheaper) SKU has some of the earlier version Enterprise features. SQL Express has some limitations."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

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

Cloud Flare, Agari, Mix Rank, Heap
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 Citus Data vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.