How does DB2 Express compare to Sql Server Express?

Question

I have only just found out about DB2 Express. I had a quick look and was unable to find a load of information about it but would be interested in hearing how people have found it compared to SQL Server Express (particularly 2008) in terms of

1. Ease of deployment
2. Ease of use and development tools
3. Limitations such as size or CPU limits
4. Integration with .NET and other third party tools like nHibernate

Answer 1

I assume that you are talking about the Express-C edition of DB2 (which is not the samme as DB2 Express).

1,2: If you are generally working on a Windows platform (dev tools, backend+frontend, ...), you will find MSSQL easier to deploy and use. And in general, MSSQL is probably a bit easier to deploy than DB2.

3: Among the free offerings from the "big three" vendors, DB2 Express-C has the least restrictions.

Answer 2

DB2 Express is not free, DB2 Express-C (as Troels pointed out), is free to use. DB2 Express-C is cross-platform, and would probably be faster than PostgreSQL for mid-sized enterprise applications. DB2 is generally a little cheaper than Oracle as well, so if you needed to upgrade, DB2 might be a decent option.

I'd recommend DB2 Express-C if you need cross-platform enterprise scalable applications with solid enterprise grade management tools. That said, your question was how it compared against SQL Server Express ... so here are specific answers to those questions:

1. DB2 Express is easier to deploy than Oracle, more difficult than MS SQL.
2. For whatever reason, I've always dropped into SQL DDL statements (CREATE/ALTER TABLE, etc.) with DB2 and Oracle instead of using their Admin tools, while SQL Server Management Studio (even the free version) seem easy/fast enough to warrant using. This might just be me though
3. Currently DB2 Express-C has a 4 core (2 CPU), 2 GB limit, with no database size limit (more info). These limits are far better than MSSQL Express's (1 CPU, but no core limit, 1GB RAM, and 4GB database size)
4. Not surprisingly, SQL Server Express integrates much better with .NET applications (assuming you're using Visual Studio). However, DB2 generally works better with Java than SQL Server

I hope this helps!