Saturday, July 19. 2008Cross Compare SQL Server 2008 Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4, MySQL 5-6A few people have been asking us what are the pros and cons of using SQL Server 2008 Spatial and PostGIS and as a Windows user, why would you still consider using PostGIS. Rather than simply providing some hand-waving saying "well if you just care about displaying data, then use whatever you feel comfortable with, but if you want to do real intensive sophisticated spatial analysis and geometric processing without having to purchase a bunch of expensive software, then PostGIS is probably better for you. Hell why must you think in either or propositions - just use both using the strengths of each.", we have tried really hard to quantify the similarities and differences between the 2 and to boot - we have also added in MySQL. Our analysis can be found at Cross Compare SQL Server 2008 Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4, MySQL 5-6 If you have any comments, suggestions of additions, things you felt we got wrong, then please don't hesitate to comment and we'll try to update our survey. 
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Hi!
Nice to see an article that covers the strengths and weaknesses of the various platforms and a realistic outlook on why various shops may choose one or the other.
Just a quick note: MapGuide Open Source also supports SQL Server 2008 if you use a beta FDO provider, but you may need to pull the latest provider and compile it yourself for the new axis order stuff. I did a bit of testing with an earlier version, and it works relatively well.
http://www.jasonbirch.com/nodes/2008/03/05/170/mapguide-open-source-serves-up-sql-server-spatial/
Some of the statements I made there (such as MS relaxing geometry strictness) are likely incorrect though.
SQL Server 2008 RC0 also supports Z and M values, similar to MySQL. In the table it looks like that isn't supported at all.
Thanks Morten. We've updated. You know off hand if SQL Server 2008 does anything with M and Z or can it e.g. is the ST_Length function take into consideration the Z axes like PostGIS ST_Length3D does? I couldn't easily tell from the docs and haven't gotten that far in my exploration.
Good survey. A couple edits/corrections to the SQL Server info:
- I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Various levels of features based on version, Free Crippleware". To clarify, overall this is true (although I might debate the "Crippleware" note) but there are no spatial-specific limitations in any edition.
- STDistance on geography no longer has the point limitation. (BOL needs to be fixed---docs bug opened!)
- You are correct that you have to roll your own aggregates today, but you can also roll your own functions like linear referencing. I'll try to post some examples.
Cheers,
-Isaac
Thanks Isaac. I agree we should have clarified that the spatial support is fully supported in express, but there is the memory-size, processor limitation. Which is vastly less annoying than Oracle requiring Enterprise version to get the real deal. We'll update but try to be less verbose than that.
We'll also correct the distance and put in comment about linear referencing. When you are done with your examples, we'll add a link to those.
Good work. I suggest one more feature: "Free Object/Relational Mapping". Hibernate Spatial supports PostGIS, MySQL and Oracle. NHibernate.Spatial supports PostGIS, MsSqlSpatial and SQL Server 2008 (RC0).
http://www.hibernatespatial.org/
http://www.codeplex.com/NHibernateSpatial
Ricardo,
Thanks for the tidbit. We've added Free Object/Relational Mapping to the list.
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Spatial compares of the top 3 commonly used spatial databases Last time we did a survey such as this Cross Compare SQL Server 2008 Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4, MySQL 5-6 we had in our mix MySQL instead of Oracle. Many people wanted to see Oracl
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