The Actian Zen (formerly Pervasive PSQL) product has seen much change and growth over its 40-year lifespan. The charts on this page were created to help you visualize the major differences between each of the product releases over time.
The first chart provides a list of the major features available and which version first included that feature. The second chart shows the supported operating systems in each release. The third chart shows you which development API's are supported within each release. Finally, the last chart shows you the major release and support dates for each version.
| Database Engine Feature | v5 | v6 | v7 | v8 | v9 | v10 | v11 | v12 | v13 | v14 | v15 |
|---|
| Maximum Data File Size Supported | 4GB | 4GB | 64GB | 64GB | 256GB | 256GB | 256GB | 256GB | 64TB | 64TB | 64TB |
| Compatibility with Older Versions: Highly-reliable data migration and backward-compatibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to Write to Btrieve 5.x files or Older: Newer engines require rebuilding old files to enable writing to them. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Btrieve API Available: High-speed, navigational database engine supports ultra-fast data access with maximum flexibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SPX Network Support: Supports NetWare network stack | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| ODBC Drivers Included: Supports ad hoc queries and reporting from any ODBC application | No | Yes1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TCP/IP Network Support: Supports IPv4 network stack | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NetBIOS Network Support: Supports Microsoft Workgroup Communications | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Turbo Write Accelerator: New disk algorithm improves write performance on V8+ files | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| New SQL Functions: SQL functions like TOP, ROWCOUNT, TIME_ZONE, and more have been added | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Debug Requesters Installed: Assists developers with debugging applications in pre-installed environments | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Page Compression: Saves disk space and can improve performance | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Linux Support: Eliminates dependence on Microsoft operating systems | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Improved SQL Performance: SQL engine has been tuned and improved considerably over older versions | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Improved COBOL Support: OCCURS and REDFINES functionality is now supported inside the data dictionary and SQL | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 64-bit Microkernel Engine: Better performance and scalability through larger cache sizes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Long Owner Names 1: Improved security with owner names up to 20 bytes in length and better encryption | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes2 | Yes2 |
| Multi-Core Support: Improved performance and scalability on multi-core hardware | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 64-bit SQL Engine: Better performance and scalability due to having more memory available | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Performance Monitor Counters: Adds the ability to monitor engine health and performance from PerfMon | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IPv6 Network Support: Adds support for native IPv6 networks | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Telephone Activation Added: Allows activation of licenses where Internet access is unavailable | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ORDER BY Allowed in Subquery: Improves SQL engine capabilities with TOP clause | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Backup Agent Included2: Supports simplified backups with users in the system through ContOps Mode | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| VSS Writer Included: VSS Writer supports full backups with users in the system (Server Engines only) | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SaaS Licensing Available: Hosted applications and Software-as-a-Service installations are supported | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Online Database Defragmenter: Optimize storage and performance of data files with system running | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| VM Live Migration Support: More flexible licensing model allows for easier server management | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SQL Unicode Support: Support for NCHAR, NVARCHAR data types and new UNICODE ODBC drivers | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Simplified Installation: Installs all components for the OS -- no more split 32-bit or 64-bit installers | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Simplified Licensing: License is based on machine name only, not the hardware fingerprint | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Standalone Server License Available: Allows full 64-bit engine performance on single-user system at a lower cost | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CVE-2017-11757 Vulnerability Resolved: This security vulnerability has been addressed. | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cache Management: Allows you to load data into the database engine cache (or purge it) to improve performance | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| New Btrieve 2 API: Simpler interface for new developers, supporting C/C++, and SWIG access for C#, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, etc. | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Reporting Engine Available: Cache engine offloads SQL processing for better SQL performance | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Edge Server Edition Available: Supports SQL/Btrieve on Edge/IoT Devices (like RaspPi) on ARM and Intel | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| New BTRVEX API: Supports larger data buffers, as well as support for tables over 256GB or with more than 4 billion rows | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| LIKE Function Supported in Extended Operations: Allows developers to search for text data more rapidly | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TRY_CAST and TRY_CONVERT Functions Added: Allows data conversions in SQL to not fail on error | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| UPSERT Capability Added: Allows SQL statements to attempt an INSERT, and if it fails, switch to an UPDATE instead | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BIGIDENTITY/AUTOINC Support: Supports 8-byte auto-increment values to support more records | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Improved Schema Export/Import: Streamlines conversion to v2 metadata or migrating tables to a new database | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Active Directory Integration: Offers a simplified security scheme for AD users | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Core Edition Available: Supports SQL/Btrieve on Android/iOS Devices | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| AUTOTIMESTAMP Data Type: Stores current timestamp on Insert or Update | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| TIMESTAMP2 Data Type: Provides support for nanosecond precision on timestamps | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| AES-256 File Encryption: Provides improved security on disk with known and tested algorithm | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Java Engine Separated: Allows upgrade of Java separately from the Actian components | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| JSON Filtering in GetNextExtended Calls: Allows search of LONGVARCHAR data for JSON-formatted data | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| New DeleteExtended Capability: Can delete multiple records faster and more efficiently in a single call | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Data Export Utility Included: Allows easy export of data from the command line with built-in tool | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| CVE-2022-40756 Vulnerability Resolved: This security vulnerability has been addressed. | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Long Owner Names 2: Improved security with 32-byte owner names and better encryption | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes4 | Yes4 |
| File Close Delay: Performance gain when files are closed then opened again | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| SQL Performance Improvements: SQL engine is faster for DELETE and LIKE/ILIKE Operations | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Scalar Subquery Optimization: SQL is faster when non-correlated, scalar subqueries are used | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| System Data v2: Stores create and last update time for each record and exposes it from SQL | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| SQL Windowing Functions: New functions for OVER(PARTTION...) syntax, as well as EVERYN, LAG, and DATEFLOOR functions for time-series data | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| JSON Output From Tools: Allows scripting environments like Powershell to parse results more easily | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Configure On Installation: Allows developers to slipstream configuration options at installation time | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| More Detailed Key Statistics: Improves optimization of SQL queries -- requires v15.10 file format | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Sometimes you need to run with older or newer operating systems, so here is a chart showing the supported database versions for each OS.
The developer API's are accessible from a variety of programming environments and languages, including Assembler, BASIC, C, C++, C#, Pascal, Delphi, Fortran, Several COBOL variants, and many more. If you are programming with a specific API, though, then you may need to know which versions suport that API.
And finally, flipping the chart sideways, we can show the release dates, End of General Availability, and End of Support Dates for each version.
Of course, this information is provided simply as a quick-reference chart and should NOT be considered the final word on supported features or platforms, as there are sometimes idiosyncrasies that cannot be easily depicted in this format. For example, some features may only be in specific sub-versions. In short, use this data with caution, and refer back to the official product manuals from Actian for the final word on support.
