List of the Top 12 SQL Databases for StrongDM in 2025

Snowflake is a comprehensive, cloud-based data platform designed to simplify data management, storage, and analytics for businesses of all sizes. With a unique architecture that separates storage and compute resources, Snowflake offers users the ability to scale both independently based on workload demands. The platform supports real-time analytics, data sharing, and integration with a wide range of third-party tools, allowing businesses to gain actionable insights from their data quickly. Snowflake's advanced security features, including automatic encryption and multi-cloud capabilities, ensure that data is both protected and easily accessible. Snowflake is ideal for companies seeking to modernize their data architecture, enabling seamless collaboration across departments and improving decision-making processes.

MySQL is recognized as the leading open source database in the world. Its impressive history of reliability, performance, and ease of use has made it the go-to choice for many web applications, including major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as the five most visited websites. Additionally, MySQL is a popular option for embedded database solutions, with many independent software vendors and original equipment manufacturers distributing it. The database's flexibility and powerful capabilities further enhance its popularity across diverse sectors, making it a critical tool for developers and businesses alike. Its continued evolution ensures that it remains relevant in an ever-changing technological landscape.

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) streamlines the creation, administration, and scaling of relational databases in the cloud. It presents a budget-friendly and flexible capacity option while handling time-consuming management activities such as hardware setup, database configuration, applying updates, and conducting backups. This enables you to focus on enhancing your applications, ensuring they deliver optimal performance, robust availability, security, and compatibility. Amazon RDS provides a variety of database instance types tailored for memory, performance, or I/O optimization and supports a range of six popular database engines, including Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and SQL Server. Furthermore, the AWS Database Migration Service simplifies the process of moving or replicating your current databases to Amazon RDS, ensuring an easy and efficient transition. Ultimately, Amazon RDS equips organizations with powerful database solutions while alleviating the complexities associated with management tasks. By choosing this service, businesses can gain more agility and focus on innovation instead of maintenance.

Amazon Aurora is a cloud-native relational database designed to work seamlessly with both MySQL and PostgreSQL, offering the high performance and reliability typically associated with traditional enterprise databases while also providing the cost-effectiveness and simplicity of open-source solutions. Its performance is notably superior, achieving speeds up to five times faster than standard MySQL databases and three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases. Moreover, it combines the security, availability, and reliability expected from commercial databases, all at a remarkably lower price point—specifically, only one-tenth of the cost. Managed entirely by the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Aurora streamlines operations by automating critical tasks such as hardware provisioning, database configuration, patch management, and backup processes. This database features a fault-tolerant storage architecture that can automatically scale to support database instances as large as 64TB. Additionally, Amazon Aurora enhances performance and availability through capabilities like up to 15 low-latency read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backups to Amazon S3, and data replication across three separate Availability Zones, all of which improve data resilience and accessibility. These comprehensive features not only make Amazon Aurora an attractive option for businesses aiming to harness the cloud for their database requirements but also ensure they can do so while enjoying exceptional performance and security measures. Ultimately, adopting Amazon Aurora can lead to reduced operational overhead and greater focus on innovation.

SingleStore, formerly known as MemSQL, is an advanced SQL database that boasts impressive scalability and distribution capabilities, making it adaptable to any environment. It is engineered to deliver outstanding performance for both transactional and analytical workloads using familiar relational structures. This database facilitates continuous data ingestion, which is essential for operational analytics that drive critical business functions. With the ability to process millions of events per second, SingleStore guarantees ACID compliance while enabling the concurrent examination of extensive datasets in various formats such as relational SQL, JSON, geospatial data, and full-text searches. It stands out for its exceptional performance in data ingestion at scale and features integrated batch loading alongside real-time data pipelines. Utilizing ANSI SQL, SingleStore provides swift query responses for both real-time and historical data, thus supporting ad hoc analysis via business intelligence applications. Moreover, it allows users to run machine learning algorithms for instant scoring and perform geoanalytic queries in real-time, significantly improving the decision-making process. Its adaptability and efficiency make it an ideal solution for organizations seeking to extract valuable insights from a wide range of data types, ultimately enhancing their strategic capabilities. Additionally, SingleStore's ability to seamlessly integrate with existing systems further amplifies its appeal for enterprises aiming to innovate and optimize their data handling.

Redis Labs serves as the official home of Redis, showcasing its leading product, Redis Enterprise, which is recognized as the most advanced version of Redis. Offering much more than mere caching capabilities, Redis Enterprise is accessible for free in the cloud, delivering NoSQL solutions and utilizing the fastest in-memory database available. The platform is designed for scalability and enterprise-level resilience, enabling massive scaling along with user-friendly administration and operational efficiency. Notably, Redis in the Cloud has gained popularity among DevOps professionals due to its capabilities. Developers benefit from advanced data structures and a broad range of modules, empowering them to foster innovation and achieve quicker time-to-market. Chief Information Officers appreciate the robust security and reliable expert support that Redis provides, ensuring an impressive uptime of 99.999%. For scenarios involving active-active configurations, geodistribution, and conflict resolution with read/write operations across multiple regions on the same dataset, relational databases are recommended. Furthermore, Redis Enterprise facilitates various flexible deployment options, making it adaptable to different environments. The ecosystem also includes Redis JSON, Redis Java, and Python Redis, along with best practices for Redis on Kubernetes and GUI management, solidifying its versatility in modern application development.

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database designed for cloud-native applications. For cloud-based services to thrive, they require a database that not only scales seamlessly across various cloud environments but also minimizes operational challenges and enhances reliability. CockroachDB offers robust, resilient SQL with ACID transaction support, along with options for geographic data partitioning. When integrated with orchestration tools like Mesosphere DC/OS and Kubernetes, CockroachDB can significantly streamline the operation of critical applications. This combination not only boosts efficiency but also ensures that applications are more adaptable to changing demands.

Amazon Redshift stands out as the favored option for cloud data warehousing among a wide spectrum of clients, outpacing its rivals. It caters to analytical needs for a variety of enterprises, ranging from established Fortune 500 companies to burgeoning startups, helping them grow into multi-billion dollar entities, as exemplified by Lyft. The platform is particularly adept at facilitating the extraction of meaningful insights from vast datasets. Users can effortlessly perform queries on large amounts of both structured and semi-structured data throughout their data warehouses, operational databases, and data lakes, utilizing standard SQL for their queries. Moreover, Redshift enables the convenient storage of query results back to an S3 data lake in open formats like Apache Parquet, allowing for further exploration with other analysis tools such as Amazon EMR, Amazon Athena, and Amazon SageMaker. Acknowledged as the fastest cloud data warehouse in the world, Redshift consistently improves its speed and performance annually. For high-demand workloads, the newest RA3 instances can provide performance levels that are up to three times superior to any other cloud data warehouse on the market today. This impressive capability establishes Redshift as an essential tool for organizations looking to optimize their data processing and analytical strategies, driving them toward greater operational efficiency and insight generation. As more businesses recognize these advantages, Redshift’s user base continues to expand rapidly.

Greenplum Database® is recognized as a cutting-edge, all-encompassing open-source data warehouse solution. It shines in delivering quick and powerful analytics on data sets that can scale to petabytes. Tailored specifically for big data analytics, the system is powered by a sophisticated cost-based query optimizer that guarantees outstanding performance for analytical queries on large data sets. Operating under the Apache 2 license, we express our heartfelt appreciation to all current contributors and warmly welcome new participants to join our collaborative efforts. In the Greenplum Database community, all contributions are cherished, no matter how small, and we wholeheartedly promote various forms of engagement. This platform acts as an open-source, massively parallel data environment specifically designed for analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence initiatives. Users can rapidly create and deploy models aimed at addressing intricate challenges in areas like cybersecurity, predictive maintenance, risk management, and fraud detection, among many others. Explore the possibilities of a fully integrated, feature-rich open-source analytics platform that fosters innovation and drives progress in numerous fields. Additionally, the community thrives on collaboration, ensuring continuous improvement and adaptation to emerging technologies in data analytics.

Teradata has introduced VantageCloud, a comprehensive cloud analytics platform designed to accelerate innovation through data utilization. By integrating artificial intelligence, machine learning, and real-time data processing, VantageCloud enables businesses to transform raw data into actionable insights. The platform supports a wide range of applications, including advanced analytics, business intelligence, and cloud migration, while facilitating seamless deployment across public, hybrid, or on-premise environments. With Teradata’s robust analytical tools, organizations can fully leverage their data, improving operational efficiency and uncovering new growth opportunities across various industries. This versatility positions VantageCloud as an essential resource for businesses aiming to excel in an increasingly data-centric world. As companies continue to navigate the complexities of their respective markets, the dynamic capabilities of VantageCloud will play a crucial role in their success.

PostgreSQL is a robust and well-established open-source object-relational database system that has been under continuous development for over thirty years, earning a strong reputation for its dependability, rich features, and exceptional performance. The official documentation provides thorough resources for both installation and usage, making it an essential reference for newcomers and seasoned users alike. Moreover, the vibrant open-source community supports numerous forums and platforms where enthusiasts can deepen their understanding of PostgreSQL, explore its capabilities, and discover job openings in the field. Participating in this community can greatly enrich your knowledge while strengthening your ties to the PostgreSQL network. Recently, the PostgreSQL Global Development Group revealed updates for all currently supported versions, including 15.1, 14.6, 13.9, 12.13, 11.18, and 10.23, which fix 25 bugs reported in recent months. It is important to note that this update represents the final release for PostgreSQL 10, which will no longer receive any security patches or bug fixes moving forward. Therefore, if you are still using PostgreSQL 10 in a production environment, it is strongly advised to organize an upgrade to a newer version to maintain support and security. Transitioning to a more recent version will not only help safeguard your data but also enable you to benefit from the latest features and enhancements introduced in newer updates. Furthermore, keeping your database system up-to-date can significantly improve overall performance and provide better compatibility with modern applications.

The MariaDB Platform stands out as a robust open-source database solution tailored for enterprise use. It is versatile enough to handle transactional, analytical, and hybrid workloads while accommodating both relational and JSON data formats. Its scalability ranges from single databases to extensive data warehouses and fully distributed SQL systems capable of processing millions of transactions every second, enabling interactive analytics on vast datasets. Additionally, MariaDB offers deployment options on standard hardware as well as across major public cloud services, including its own fully managed cloud database, MariaDB SkySQL. For further details, you can explore MariaDB.com, which offers comprehensive insights into its features and capabilities. Overall, MariaDB is designed to meet the diverse needs of modern data management.