An important dimension to position MonetDB within the pack of database system offerings is to consider its performance in various common business and research settings. The research library lists several studies using well-known database performance benchmarks, e.g. Wisconsin, AS3AP, TPC-H, Sequoia, and Xmark. Such benchmarks provide a first impression of the processing power of a system, but should be used with care in choosing a particular system solution. Functionality offered by the system, expertise available, and business politics are as important in most situations.

Nevertheless, benchmarking plays an important role in monitoring progress in the system implementation or to warn for unanticipated performance loss. Therefore, most of the benchmarks identified above are an integral part of our daily testing scripts. However, their size is trimmed to finish the job in reasonable time. More extensive benchmark activity reports are collected in the side-bar for further inspiration.