Rebecca Lewis states that rumors of SQL Server’s demise have been greatly exaggerated:
LinkedIn is doing that thing again. ‘Is SQL Server Dead?’ posts are getting traction, the comment sections are lit, and I’m sure a lot of managers out there are forwarding one of them to a DBA with a question mark and no context. It happens every few years. NoSQL was going to kill it. The cloud was going to kill it. Now it’s AI and Fabric. I’ve been doing this for 28 years. Let me save you some time.
No. SQL Server is not dead or even dying. But something is changing — and we need to understand what.
Read on for Rebecca’s take. At the very least, I strongly agree with the general thrust of her argument. And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Feasel’s Law here.
What makes this tricky is that there’s definitely more impetus from Microsoft to get people in Azure and using SQL Server-derived products up there. And the stability of the product has definitely taken a hit in the past couple of versions, something I chalk up to the organization removing QA teams back in about 2018. I do think the biggest competition for SQL Server is open-source relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL. At the same time, it’s not just a matter of “Let’s take a weekend and replace database management systems.” For that reason (among others), I do expect to see SQL Server around for quite a while.
And do check out Andy Yun’s comment. It links to a paper I’ve had on my to-read list that a Shop Talk viewer gave me while I was ranting on a somewhat similar topic.