Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2017

Applies to: SQL Server 2017 (14.x) and later

This article provides details of features supported by the various editions of SQL Server 2017.

For information about other versions, see:

Installation requirements vary based on your application needs. The different editions of SQL Server accommodate the unique performance, runtime, and price requirements of organizations and individuals. The SQL Server components that you install also depend on your specific requirements. The following sections help you understand how to make the best choice among the editions and components available in SQL Server.

For the latest release notes and what's new information, see the following:

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Download SQL Server 2017 from the Evaluation Center

SQL Server editions

The following table describes the editions of SQL Server.

Edition Definition
Enterprise The premium offering, SQL Server Enterprise edition delivers comprehensive high-end datacenter capabilities with blazing-fast performance, unlimited virtualization 1, and end-to-end business intelligence, enabling high service levels for mission-critical workloads and end-user access to data insights.

Enterprise edition is available for evaluation. An evaluation deployment is available for 180 days. Review the version specific licensing guide for details.
Standard SQL Server Standard edition delivers basic data management and business intelligence database for departments and small organizations to run their applications and supports common development tools for on-premises and cloud, enabling effective database management with minimal IT resources.
Web SQL Server Web edition is a low total-cost-of-ownership option for Web hosters (including choosing Web edition on IaaS on Azure) and Web VAPs to provide scalability, affordability, and manageability capabilities for small to large-scale Web properties.
Developer SQL Server Developer edition lets developers build any kind of application on top of SQL Server. It includes all the functionality of Enterprise edition, but is licensed for use as a development and test system, not as a production server. SQL Server Developer is an ideal choice for people who build and test applications.
Express edition SQL Server Express edition is the entry-level, free database and is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server data-driven applications. It is the best choice for independent software vendors, developers, and hobbyists building client applications. If you need more advanced database features, SQL Server Express can be seamlessly upgraded to other higher end versions of SQL Server. SQL Server Express LocalDB is a lightweight version of Express edition that has all of its programmability features, runs in user mode and has a fast, zero-configuration installation and a short list of prerequisites.

1 Unlimited virtualization is available on Enterprise edition for customers with Software Assurance. Deployments must comply with the licensing guide. For more information, see our pricing and licensing page.

Use SQL Server with an Internet Server

On an Internet server, such as a server that is running Internet Information Services (IIS), you will typically install the SQL Server client tools. Client tools include the client connectivity components used by an application connecting to an instance of SQL Server.

Note

Although you can install an instance of SQL Server on a computer that is running IIS, this is typically done only for small Web sites that have a single server computer. Most Web sites have their middle-tier IIS systems on one server or a cluster of servers, and their databases on a separate server or federation of servers.

Use SQL Server with client/server applications

You can install just the SQL Server client components on a computer that is running client/server applications that connect directly to an instance of SQL Server. A client components installation is also a good option if you administer an instance of SQL Server on a database server, or if you plan to develop SQL Server applications.

The client tools option installs the following SQL Server features: backward compatibility components, SQL Server Data Tools, connectivity components, management tools, software development kit, and SQL Server Books Online components. For more information, see Install SQL Server.

Decide among SQL Server components

Use the Feature Selection page of the SQL Server Installation Wizard to select the components to include in an installation of SQL Server. By default, none of the features in the tree are selected.

Use the information in the following tables to determine the set of features that best fits your needs.

Server components Description
SQL Server Database Engine SQL Server Database Engine includes the Database Engine, the core service for storing, processing, and securing data, replication, full-text search, tools for managing relational and XML data, in database analytics integration, and PolyBase integration for access to Hadoop and other heterogeneous data sources, and the Data Quality Services (DQS) server.
Analysis Services Analysis Services includes the tools for creating and managing online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining applications.
Reporting Services Reporting Services includes server and client components for creating, managing, and deploying tabular, matrix, graphical, and free-form reports. Reporting Services is also an extensible platform that you can use to develop report applications.
Integration Services Integration Services is a set of graphical tools and programmable objects for moving, copying, and transforming data. It also includes the Data Quality Services (DQS) component for Integration Services.
Master Data Services Master Data Services (MDS) is the SQL Server solution for master data management. MDS can be configured to manage any domain (products, customers, accounts) and includes hierarchies, granular security, transactions, data versioning, and business rules, as well as an Add-in for Excel that can be used to manage data.
Machine Learning Services (In-Database) Machine Learning Services (In-Database) supports distributed, scalable machine learning solutions using enterprise data sources. In SQL Server 2016, the R language was supported. SQL Server 2017 supports R and Python.
Machine Learning Server (Standalone) Machine Learning Server (Standalone) supports deployment of distributed, scalable machine learning solutions on multiple platforms and using multiple enterprise data sources, including Linux and Hadoop. In SQL Server 2016, the R language was supported. SQL Server 2017 supports R and Python.
Management tools Description
SQL Server Management Studio SQL Server Management Studio is an integrated environment to access, configure, manage, administer, and develop components of SQL Server. Management Studio lets developers and administrators of all skill levels use SQL Server.

Download and install
Management Studio from Download SQL Server Management Studio
SQL Server Configuration Manager SQL Server Configuration Manager provides basic configuration management for SQL Server services, server protocols, client protocols, and client aliases.
SQL Server Profiler SQL Server Profiler provides a graphical user interface to monitor an instance of the Database Engine or Analysis Services.
Database Engine Tuning Advisor Database Engine Tuning Advisor helps create optimal sets of indexes, indexed views, and partitions.
Data Quality Client Provides a highly simple and intuitive graphical user interface to connect to the DQS server, and perform data cleansing operations. It also allows you to centrally monitor various activities performed during the data cleansing operation.
SQL Server Data Tools SQL Server Data Tools provides an IDE for building solutions for the Business Intelligence components: Analysis Services, Reporting Services, and Integration Services.

(Formerly called Business Intelligence Development Studio).

SQL Server Data Tools also includes "Database Projects", which provides an integrated environment for database developers to carry out all their database design work for any SQL Server platform (both on and off premise) within Visual Studio. Database developers can use the enhanced Server Explorer in Visual Studio to easily create or edit database objects and data, or execute queries.
Connectivity Components Installs components for communication between clients and servers, and network libraries for DB-Library, ODBC, and OLE DB.
Documentation Description
SQL Server Books Online Core documentation for SQL Server.

Developer and Evaluation Editions
For features supported by Developer and Evaluation editions, see features listed for the SQL Server Enterprise Edition in the tables below.

The Developer edition continues to support only 1 client for SQL Server Distributed Replay.

Scale limits

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Maximum compute capacity used by a single instance - SQL Server Database Engine1 Operating system maximum Limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores Limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 16 cores Limited to lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores Limited to lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores
Maximum compute capacity used by a single instance - Analysis Services or Reporting Services Operating system maximum Limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores Limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 16 cores Limited to lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores Limited to lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores
Maximum memory for buffer pool per instance of SQL Server Database Engine Operating System Maximum 128 GB 64 GB 1410 MB 1410 MB
Maximum capacity for buffer pool extension per instance of SQL Server Database Engine 32 * (max server memory configuration) 4 * (max server memory configuration) N/A N/A N/A
Maximum memory for Columnstore segment cache per instance of SQL Server Database Engine Unlimited memory 32 GB 16 GB 352 MB 352 MB
Maximum memory-optimized data size per database in SQL Server Database Engine Unlimited memory 32 GB 16 GB 352 MB 352 MB
Maximum memory utilized per instance of Analysis Services Operating System Maximum Tabular: 16 GB

MOLAP: 64 GB
N/A N/A N/A
Maximum memory utilized per instance of Reporting Services Operating System Maximum 64 GB 64 GB 4 GB N/A
Maximum relational database size 524 PB 524 PB 524 PB 10 GB 10 GB

1 Enterprise Edition with Server + Client Access License (CAL) based licensing (not available for new agreements) is limited to a maximum of 20 cores per SQL Server instance. There are no limits under the Core-based Server Licensing model. For more information, see Compute Capacity Limits by Edition of SQL Server.

RDBMS high availability

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Server core support 1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Log shipping Yes Yes Yes No No
Database mirroring Yes Yes 6 Yes 5 Yes 5 Yes 5
Backup compression Yes Yes No No No
Database snapshot Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Always On failover cluster instances 2 Yes Yes No No No
Always On availability groups 3 Yes No No No No
Basic availability groups 4 No Yes No No No
Online page and file restore Yes No No No No
Online index create and rebuild Yes No No No No
Resumable online index rebuilds Yes No No No No
Online schema change Yes No No No No
Fast recovery Yes No No No No
Mirrored backups Yes No No No No
Hot add memory and CPU Yes No No No No
Database recovery advisor Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Encrypted backup Yes Yes No No No
Hybrid backup to Azure (backup to URL) Yes Yes No No No
Read-scale availability group 3,4 Yes No No No No

1 For more information on installing SQL Server on Server Core, see Install SQL Server on Server Core.

2 On Enterprise Edition, the number of nodes is the operating system maximum. On Standard edition there is support for two nodes.

3 On Enterprise Edition, provides support for up to 8 secondary replicas - including 2 synchronous secondary replicas.

4 Standard Edition supports basic availability groups. A basic availability group supports two replicas, with one database. For more information about basic availability groups, see Basic Availability Groups.

5 Witness only.

6 Full Safety only.

RDBMS scalability and performance

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Columnstore 1 2 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Large object binaries in clustered columnstore indexes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Online nonclustered columnstore index rebuild Yes No No No No
In-Memory OLTP 1 Yes Yes Yes Yes 3 Yes
Stretch Database Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Persistent Main Memory Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Multi-instance support 50 50 50 50 50
Table and index partitioning Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Data compression Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Resource Governor Yes No No No No
Partitioned Table Parallelism Yes Yes Yes No No
Multiple Filestream containers Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
NUMA Aware Large Page Memory and Buffer Array Allocation Yes No No No No
Buffer pool extension Yes Yes No No No
I/O Resource Governance Yes No No No No
Read-Ahead Yes No No No No
Advanced Scanning Yes No No No No
Delayed Durability Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Automatic Tuning Yes No No No No
Batch Mode Adaptive Joins Yes No No No No
Batch Mode Memory Grant Feedback Yes No No No No
Interleaved Execution for Multi-Statement Table Valued Functions Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Bulk insert improvements Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

1 In-Memory OLTP data size and Columnstore segment cache are limited to the amount of memory specified by edition in the Scale Limits section. The degree of parallelism (DOP) for batch mode operations is limited to 2 for SQL Server Standard Edition and 1 for SQL Server Web and Express Editions. This refers to columnstore indexes created over disk-based tables and memory-optimized tables.

2 Aggregate Pushdown, String Predicate Pushdown, and SIMD Optimizations are SQL Server Enterprise Edition scalability enhancements. For more detail, see Columnstore indexes - what's new.

3 This feature isn't included in the LocalDB installation option.

RDBMS security

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express Express
with
Advanced
Services
Row-level security Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Always Encrypted Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dynamic data masking Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Server Audit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Database Audit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Transparent database encryption Yes No No No No
Extensible key management Yes No No No No
User-defined roles Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Contained databases Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Encryption for backups Yes Yes No No No

Replication

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Heterogeneous subscribers Yes Yes No No No
Merge replication Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes 1 Yes 1
Oracle publishing Yes No No No No
Peer to peer transactional replication Yes No No No No
Snapshot replication Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes 1 Yes 1
SQL Server change tracking Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Transactional replication Yes Yes Yes 1 Yes 1 Yes 1
Transactional replication to Azure Yes Yes No No No
Transactional replication updatable subscription Yes Yes No No No

1 Subscriber only

Management tools

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
SQL Management Objects (SMO) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SQL Configuration Manager Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SQL CMD (Command Prompt tool) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Distributed Replay - Admin Tool Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Distribute Replay - Client Yes Yes Yes No No
Distributed Replay - Controller Up to 16 clients 1 client 1 client No No
SQL Profiler Yes Yes No 1 No 1 No 1
SQL Server Agent Yes Yes Yes No No
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Management Pack Yes Yes Yes No No
Database Tuning Advisor (DTA) Yes Yes 2 Yes 2 No No

1 SQL Server Web, SQL Server Express, SQL Server Express with Tools, and SQL Server Express with Advanced Services can be profiled using SQL Server Standard and SQL Server Enterprise editions.

2 Tuning enabled only on Standard edition features

RDBMS manageability

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
User instances No No No Yes Yes
LocalDB No No No Yes No
Dedicated admin connection Yes Yes Yes Yes 3 Yes 3
SysPrep support 1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
PowerShell scripting support 2 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Support for data-tier application component operations - extract, deploy, upgrade, delete Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Policy automation (check on schedule and change) Yes Yes Yes No No
Performance data collector Yes Yes Yes No No
Able to enroll as a managed instance in multi-instance management Yes Yes Yes No No
Standard performance reports Yes Yes Yes No No
Plan guides and plan freezing for plan guides Yes Yes Yes No No
Direct query of indexed views (using NOEXPAND hint) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Automatic indexed views maintenance Yes Yes Yes No No
Distributed partitioned views Yes No No No No
Parallel index operations Yes No No No No
Automatic use of indexed view by query optimizer Yes No No No No
Parallel consistency check Yes No No No No
SQL Server Utility Control Point Yes No No No No
Buffer pool extension Yes Yes No No No

1 For more information, see Considerations for Installing SQL Server Using SysPrep.

2 On Linux, PowerShell scripts are supported, from Windows computers targeting SQL Servers on Linux.

3 With trace flag.

Development tools

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Microsoft Visual Studio integration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Intellisense (Transact-SQL and MDX) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) Yes Yes Yes Yes No
MDX edit, debug, and design tools Yes Yes No No No

Programmability

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Basic R integration 1 Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Advanced R integration 2 Yes No No No No
Basic Python integration Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Advanced Python integration Yes No No No No
Machine Learning Server (Standalone) Yes No No No No
PolyBase compute node Yes Yes 3 Yes 3 Yes 3 Yes 3
PolyBase head node Yes No No No No
JSON Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Query Store Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Temporal Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Common Language Runtime (CLR) Integration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Native XML support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
XML indexing Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
MERGE and UPSERT capabilities Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
FILESTREAM support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
FileTable Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Date and Time datatypes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Internationalization support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Full-text and semantic search Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Specification of language in query Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Service Broker (messaging) Yes Yes No 4 No 4 No 4
Transact-SQL endpoints Yes Yes Yes No No
Graph Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

1 Basic integration is limited to 2 cores and in-memory data sets.

2 Advanced integration can use all available cores for parallel processing of data sets at any size subject to hardware limits.

3 Scale out with multiple compute nodes requires a head node.

4 Client only.

Integration Services

For info about SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Integration Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Master Data Services

For information about the Master Data Services and Data Quality Services features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Master Data Services and Data Quality Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Data warehouse

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Create cubes without a database Yes Yes No No No
Auto-generate staging and data warehouse schema Yes Yes No No No
Change data capture Yes Yes No No No
Star join query optimizations Yes No No No No
Scalable read-only Analysis Services configuration Yes No No No No
Parallel query processing on partitioned tables and indexes Yes No No No No
Global batch aggregation Yes No No No No

Analysis Services

For information about the Analysis Services features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Analysis Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

BI semantic model (multidimensional)

For information about the Analysis Services features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Analysis Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

BI semantic model (tabular)

For information about the Analysis Services features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Analysis Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Power Pivot for SharePoint

For information about the Power Pivot for SharePoint features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Analysis Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Data mining

For information about the data mining features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Analysis Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Reporting Services

For information about the Reporting Services features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Reporting Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Business intelligence clients

For information about the Business Intelligence Client features supported by the editions of SQL Server, see Analysis Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server or Reporting Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server.

Spatial and location services

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
Spatial indexes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Planar and geodetic datatypes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Advanced spatial libraries Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Import/export of industry-standard spatial data formats Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Additional database services

Feature Enterprise Standard Web Express
with
Advanced
Services
Express
SQL Server Migration Assistant Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Database mail Yes Yes Yes No No

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