19 Best Database Management Software Alternatives

Last Updated on November 8, 2023

Whether a small business owner or a developer, your database management software plays a significant role in managing and organizing your data. Although there are dozens of alternatives on the market, it’s essential to narrow down which ones will work best for you before deciding on one.

What are the advantages of Database Management Software

Database management software can be used for both small and large businesses. It helps them in managing their databases quickly as well as efficiently. Here are some advantages that you can get from using database management software:

Database management tools are easy to use compared to other software types. It requires little knowledge of programming languages or even about databases themselves to operate it. You need to enter data into it; this software handles the rest.

Database management software helps save time and money by reducing errors that may occur during the creation of new records or changes made in existing ones due to poor record-keeping skills or careless work habits on the part of employees working at your company premises.

Database management software also makes it easy for workers at your company premises to access their files without going through multiple steps each time they need something stored in one file.

Why is database management necessary?

Database management is necessary to keep track of the data in your database and make it available for multiple users. When working with many records, it can be challenging to know what data you have and what you need. You may have duplicate records and missing information if you need to be using database management software. Microsoft Access is an example. Microsoft Access is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. It features a graphical user interface (GUI) and can be used from various operating systems.

Database management software is essential for businesses because it helps them to keep their data organized and easy to access. In addition, it provides an opportunity to create reports and analyses of the data. The structure of a database is called the database schema. The schema defines the logical structure of your data, such as what tables are in the database, what columns each table contains, and how they relate to one another.

Database management software helps a company with its day-to-day operations by organizing the information they need to run its business smoothly. This allows them to be more efficient in their work and save time, money, and energy.

Moreover, database management software can help businesses with security concerns by ensuring that only authorized users can access the necessary information. Database management software also provides secure storage for all your company’s sensitive data, so hackers cannot access them without permission.

What are some common threats to database systems?

There are many threats to database systems. The first and most common threat is natural disasters. A natural disaster can cause a database breach, leading to the loss of valuable data and information.

The second type of threat is human error. Some humans make mistakes when entering data into databases or copying or deleting data from a database. This could lead to the loss of important information, which could be used by hackers or criminals to commit crimes against others.

The third type of threat is malicious software attacks on databases. Malicious software can allow hackers to access your computer system, steal your personal information and commit crimes against others.

It’s essential to have security measures that protect your database system from these threats.

19 Best Database Management Software Alternatives

When you’re searching for database management software (DBMS), you should know what type of platform or environment you’re going to be working with. You don’t want to pick a tool because it’s the best one available, but rather look at the options and determine which one is best for you. Here are the 19 Best Database Management Software Alternatives that are worth checking.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) that runs on many operating systems. It is one of the most popular relational databases for complex applications and data warehousing. It is built around a core set of SQL extensions, including transactions, triggers, foreign tables, views, and user-defined types.

Pricing

• Single node clusters begin at $15.00 monthly for a single node cluster with 1 GB of RAM.
• High availability clusters begin at $30.00 per month for a 2 GB RAM/1 vCPU primary node with at least one $30.00 per month matching standby node for automatic failover.
• Read-only nodes begin at $15.00 per month.

MongoDB

MongoDB is a database management system that stores and manipulates documents. MongoDB can be used as a non-relational database management system (NoSQL) for small to large-scale applications. It uses an expressive query language, which resembles SQL, but without support for relational algebra operations.

Pricing

• Dedicated: $57/month
• Shared: $0/month

MariaDB

MariaDB is a database management software that offers flexibility and scalability while staying secure and easy to use. It runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, supporting MySQL’s enhanced features.

Pricing

• Contact MariaDB for a custom quote.

SQLite

SQLite is a lightweight relational database management system. SQLite is a complete, cross-platform relational database engine created by the developers of the Perl programming language. It can be used to build simple single-file databases but also has advanced features, including transactions, row-level locking, stored procedures, triggers, and views.

Pricing

• SQLite License – $6000 one-time fee
• SQLite Encryption Extension (SEE) – $2000 one-time fee
• Compressed And Encrypted Read-Only Database (CEROD) – $2000 one-time fee
• The ZIPVFS Read/Write Compressed Database Extension – $4000 one-time fee

ArangoDB

ArangoDB is a modern, distributed document database with a flexible query language. ArangoDB offers an innovative approach to data management, allowing you to store, manage and process data in modern NoSQL databases.

Pricing

• ArangoDB Oasis: First 14 days free. After the test period, pricing starts at € 0.20/h.
• ArangoDB Enterprise: Contact website.

Oracle Database

Oracle Database is a Windows, Linux, and Unix database management software. Oracle Corporation developed it. Oracle Database is the best software for businesses to manage their databases effectively. It has many features, including multi-user access, data security, data integrity, online transaction processing (OLTP), and more.

Pricing

• Contact Oracle RDBMS for a custom quote.

RethinkDB

RethinkDB is a database management software that supports MySQL and PostgreSQL. It has a straightforward and intuitive user interface, allowing you to create, manage easily, and query databases.

Pricing

• Contact RethinkDB for pricing details.

OrientDB

OrientDB is an affordable database management system that allows you to store, analyze and query your data. It’s open source, so you can modify it as you see fit. OrientDB has full support for JSON and JSONB, which makes it easy to work with data at scale.

Pricing

• Contact OrientDB for pricing details.

Redis

Redis is an open-source data structure store, cache, and database. It is sometimes called a data structure server since it can be used as a database. Still, it was designed with the key features of an in-memory data structure store, with the additional ability to hold keys, values, and lists.

Pricing

• Free: $0 /month
• Fixed: $7 /month
• Flexible: Starts at $0.881 /hour

SQL Server

SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) and is one of the most popular databases in the world. SQL Server is developed by Microsoft Corporation and is used by many organizations worldwide to manage their business information. SQL Server is also available as a cloud-based service that can be accessed from anywhere via the internet.

Pricing

• SQL Server Standard: $1,418/year
• SQL Server Enterprise: $5,434/year

Couchbase

Couchbase is a NoSQL database management system that uses JSON documents as the primary data model. It offers high performance, scale-out via replication, and low latency. Couchbase Server can store structured or unstructured data in clusters of servers, on-premises, or in the cloud.

Pricing

• Basic: $0.28/hr per node
• Developer Pro: $0.35/hr per node
• Enterprise: $0.56/hr per node

Cassandra

Cassandra is a column-oriented database server designed for large-scale data storage and retrieval. It supports distributed transaction processing, comprehensive security, and strong consistency. Cassandra has been developed to be an open-source database system suitable for mission-critical applications.

Pricing

• Contact Cassandra for pricing details. 

Cloudant

Cloudant is a database management software that allows you to manage your data in the cloud. It’s built on top of PostgreSQL, which means you can use all of your existing database skills to use it. Cloudant provides an easy-to-use interface for interacting with your database. You can create databases, tables, and views; insert, update, and delete data; perform joins and aggregations; and even run simple queries against those tables.

Pricing

• Standard: $1 per month per GB of storage above 20 GB.
• Standard: $75 per month, 100 reads/second; 50 writes/second; 5 global queries/second.

MarkLogic

MarkLogic is a database management system that provides an enterprise-grade solution for storing, migrating, and managing data. MarkLogic customers can choose from various storage modules to meet their specific needs.

Pricing

• Essential Enterprise: starting at $18k/year
• Essential Enterprise: AWS or Azure starting at $0.99/hour 
• Developer: Free

Firebase

Firebase is a database management software that helps you create and manage your databases. Firebase provides several features that are easy to use and powerful simultaneously, such as real-time database sync, user authentication, data storage, and more.

Pricing

• Contact Firebase for a custom quote.

Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch is a free and open-source search engine based on Apache Lucene. Elasticsearch is designed to work well with large amounts of data, especially when indexing and searching are just some of the things you need to do with your data. Elasticsearch supports many query languages, including full-text search, field-level searching, geospatial searching, and streaming analytics. Elasticsearch can be used as a complete replacement for traditional database engines like MySQL or PostgreSQL. Still, it also has features that make it an ideal choice for more straightforward tasks like log management or monitoring user activity across multiple applications.

Pricing

• Standard: $95 per month
• Gold: $109 per month
• Platinum: $125 per month
• Enterprise: $175 per month

ClickHouse

ClickHouse is a NoSQL database management system that stores data as JSON documents. It is open-source and free for use in commercial environments. ClickHouse is an advanced, scalable, fast data storage engine supporting massive scale. ClickHouse can store billions of database objects with high speed, low latency, and high throughput.

Pricing

• Contact ClickHouse for pricing details.

CouchDB

CouchDB is a database management system (DBMS) that stores documents as JSON objects in key-value pairs. Documents can be seen as documents, but they can also be stored in collections, which are related documents.

Pricing

• Contact CouchDB for pricing details.

IBM DB2

IBM DB2 is a database management system that supports many data types, including text, numeric and graphical data. The software can create and manage databases, including mainframe, mid-size, and distributed systems.

Pricing

• Lite plan: $0
• Standard plan: $99/month
• Enterprise plan: $946/month

Conclusions

Regardless of the database management software you choose, remember that the primary reason to have a database system is to store important information. Keeping it in your mind and remembering that you have all of this information, regardless of which data management software you choose, will make it much easier to keep track of everything. It’s not that difficult once you get started. Check out our website to learn more about Database Management Software.

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