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No to mention the SQLS execution planner will beat the pants off both MySQL's and Postgres' when it comes to non-trivial queries.

Don't know how it compares to Oracle as I've never used it.

You mean the CTRL-L query profiler, the table editor and the server performance monitor that the MSSQLMS had since 2005? Or is there something else?

S/he is probably talking about the large ecosystem of companies that provide SQL Server tooling on top of the basics Microsoft provides. (Disclaimer: I used to work for one of them.)

That being the case then, yes, the tooling is light-years ahead of anything else.

MS have a long history of encouraging third party developers to create tooling around their platforms to help sell those platforms, and keep people using them.

Do they have a proper CLI client now? Working with SQL Server is great as long you have SQL Server Management Studio, but not having a CLI client makes me cry when I just want to do something quickly over SSH.

There has been a command-line client as long as I can remember (OSQL.EXE first, and later SQLCMD.EXE).

Why wouldn't you use an ssh tunnel?