TallTed
commented
1 year ago I posted the following to StackOverflow a few years ago. So far as I know, it's all still accurate (modulo "latest version" details).
iODBC and unixOBDC are basically API equivalent, both being cross-platform implementations of Microsoft's ODBC standard. iODBC's flexible Unicode support includes UCS-2, UTF-8, UCS-4. iODBC libraries are bundled into macOS Panther (10.3.0) through Big Sur (11.2.x), and may be built and/or installed on AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, any Linux distribution, *BSD, other Unix-like OS, and more. iODBC has been thread safe for a very long time, and is actively maintained and supported by OpenLink Software (my employer).
The table below covers the most common comparative questions (is there something I should add?), and is based on iODBC 3.52.14, as of February 2021 (reports version 03.52.1421.0217), and unixODBC 2.3.9, as of September 2020.
For a somewhat more detailed comparison, and a much more fancy and detailed table, see this spreadsheet
| feature | iODBC | UnixODBC |
|---|---|---|
| Unicode support | ||
| UCS-2 | YES | YES |
| UCS-4 (a/k/a UTF-32) | YES | NO |
| UTF-08 (a/k/a UTF-8) | YES | NO |
| UTF-16 | YES | YES |
| UTF-32 (a/k/a UCS-4) | YES | NO |
| Supports drivers and apps developed using other SDKs |
||
| Supports drivers developed using iODBC SDK | YES | NO |
| Supports apps developed using iODBC SDK | YES | NO |
| Supports drivers developed using unixODBC SDK | YES | YES |
| Supports apps developed using unixODBC SDK | YES | YES |
| Supports drivers developed using DataDirect SDK | YES | NO |
| Supports apps developed using DataDirect SDK | YES | NO |
| OS default DM | ||
| macOS | YES | NO |
| Linux | partial | partial |
| Unix-like | partial | partial |
| OS support | ||
| macOS | YES | partial |
| Linux | YES | YES |
| Unix-like | YES | YES |
| User-friendly native GUI Administrator | ||
| macOS | YES | Qt-based |
| Linux | GTK-based and HTML-based | Qt-based |
| Unix-like | GTK-based and HTML-based | Qt-based |
| Thread Safe | YES | YES |
| Support | ||
| Mailing List(s) | YES | YES |
| Forum(s) | YES | YES |
| Github repository | YES | YES |
| SourceForge repository | YES | YES |
| Open Source Licensing | ||
| GPL | NO | programs |
| LGPL | YES | libraries |
| BSD | YES | NO |
Notes
Unicode a/k/a Wide Characters
- iODBC supports and translates between all of UCS-2, UCS-4, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32
- unixODBC follows MDAC, and
SQLWCHARs are 2 bytes UCS2 encoded
SDK lock-in
- iODBC supports applications and drivers developed using unixODBC SDK and DataDirect SDK as well as those developed using iODBC SDK
- unixODBC only supports applications and drivers developed using unixODBC SDK
https://github.com/lurcher/unixODBC