Another responder explained the multiple heterogeneous result-sets comment. As for the tools...they are superior in the fact that they exist because no comparab

Another responder explained the multiple heterogeneous result-sets comment. As for the tools...they are superior in the fact that they exist because no comparable tools exists for the competing database servers as far as I can see. For instance - SSDT is basically an IDE for creating a SQL Server Project. You use it to create your tables, procedures, functions, etc. Every object's DDL is stored in it's own file. You store that in your source repo. SSDT will diff one server-database with another server-database and generate an update script. It will diff the project's DDL with a server-database and generate an update script (or update your project's DDL from the server). It also performs data diffs so that you can make two different server-databases contain the same data (or generate an UPDATE/INSERT script). SSMS is not an IDE, it just lets you run ad-hoc queries and provides a GUI to manage most configuration element of SQL Server. It's got a GUI to create users, roles, permissions, etc. You can start the SQL Profiler from SSMS. It's got syntax highlighting and intellisense/autocomplete for database objects. Other databases have some of these tools, but they don't come in one unified package - you pretty much have to cobble together your own kit for other databases.