Exasol vs IBM Db2
Exasol
exasol.com
IBM Db2
ibm.comSide by side
| Figure | Exasol | IBM Db2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $3.30/mo | $630/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 18 | 7 |
| Spec score · Analytics Databases | 9.2 (#1) | 8.4 (#8) |
| Spec score · Analytics Data | 9.2 (#1) | 8.4 (#7) |
| Spec score · OLAP Software | 9.1 (#2) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Spec score · Analytical Data Store Software | 9.1 (#3) | 8.3 (#7) |
| Spec score · Data Warehouse Software | 9.2 (#3) | 8.3 (#5) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 9.0 (#9) | 8.6 (#22) |
| Spec score · Columnar Databases | 9.1 (#5) | 8.3 (#8) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Official ecosystem documentation lists BI integrations including Power BI, Tableau, Looker, Qlik Sense, SAS, Superset, Yellowfin and Amazon QuickSight. | IBM documents connections through drivers and integrations with DataStage, Segment, Cognos Analytics, Looker, Tableau, Excel, SPSS Statistics, SAS, and R. |
| Intended users | Exasol SaaS is described as suited to organizations needing multi-departmental analytics, in-database machine learning or AI, and complex data integration or virtualization. | IBM positions Db2 for mission-critical enterprise applications, AI assistants, cloud-native data-intensive applications, and CRM or ERP systems. |
| Security | Exasol states that it is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and describes controls including access control and incident response processes. | IBM describes access controls, encryption for data in motion and at rest, behavior monitoring, and data masking features for Db2. |
| Support | Exasol’s support page lists 24/7 incident troubleshooting and monitoring, plus performance analysis, maintenance, and planning assistance. | The pricing page lists Community Support for Db2 AI Community and Enterprise Support for Db2 AI Standard and AI Advanced. |
Plans
Exasol
- XS$3.30 a month
- S$6.60 a month
- M$13.20 a month
- L$26.40 a month
- XL$52.80 a month
- 2XL$105.60 a month
- 3XL$158.40 a month
- Storage$25 a month
- Exasol Community EditionFree
- Exasol PersonalFree
IBM Db2
- FreeFree
- Performance$630 a month
- Db2 AI CommunityFree
- Db2 Database SaaS FreeFree
- Db2 Database SaaS Performance$630 a month
- Db2 AI AdvancedPriced on request
- Db2 AI StandardPriced on request
In their own words
Exasol
Exasol is a database for analytics and high-concurrency AI workloads, available in cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and fully managed SaaS deployments. The company says teams can analyze billions of rows in seconds and that automatic self-indexing helps tune performance. SaaS includes five databases, multi-cluster support, basic UDF support, advanced in-database analytics, and data virtualization. Teams can scale vertically or add clusters with dedicated compute for work such as data ingest or machine learning. The 30-day SaaS trial includes $200 of usage and requires no credit card. Pay-as-you-go compute is billed hourly; XS is $3.30 a month and S is $6.60 a month, while storage is listed separately at $25 a month. Free options include Exasol Personal, licensed for a single user and up to two connected data sources, and Community Edition, limited to 200GB of data. Exasol lists integrations including Airbyte, Alation, Amazon QuickSight, Apache Airflow, and Apache Superset. Its documentation covers multiple authentication methods and TLS encryption for database connections; encryption at rest must be configured on the supplied file systems and devices.
IBM Db2
IBM Db2 is a database for low-latency transactions, real-time analytics, and mission-critical workloads. It supports transactional, analytical, and operational work on the same database and can feed Db2 Warehouse and watsonx.data. AI-powered query optimization uses historical query patterns to adjust execution plans and automate tuning. Db2 12.1.2.0 adds a VECTOR type and SQL vector-distance queries for semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation, and recommendation systems. Db2 pureScale supports continuous availability on premises or in the cloud, with Pacemaker integration. Security features include access controls, encryption in transit and at rest, behavior monitoring, and data masking. IBM documents integrations with DataStage, Segment, Cognos Analytics, Looker, Tableau, Excel, SPSS Statistics, SAS, and R. Supported deployments include self-hosting and Amazon RDS for Db2. Free plans are available; Performance is listed at $630 a month, billed hourly.