# Rails and mssql

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-and-mssql/187763>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 28, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-and-mssql/187763 "2010-04-28T23:11:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rhossi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@rhossi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rhossi)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-and-mssql/187763/1 "2010-04-28T23:11:26Z")

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We are developing a solution for a client. Today he is using [ASP.NET](http://ASP.NET)  
with SQL Server 2008 and wanna use SQL Server 2008 as database for the  
Rails application as well.

So, they were asking us why Active Record uses unixODBC to communicate  
with SQL Server instead of using only freeTDS - they were concerned  
about performance problems.

We googled the subject a little bit, and we weren’t able to find any  
Ruby solution that uses solely freeTDS. They all used unixODBC in some  
sort of way.

Questions:

1. Why the freeTDS solutions out there always uses unixODBC in some  
sort of way?
2. Is it possible to communicate with SQL Server using only freeTDS?
3. Will we gain any performance using only freeTDS instead of freeTDS

- unixODBC

Thanks in advance.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rhossi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@rhossi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rhossi)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-and-mssql/187763/2 "2010-04-30T00:08:17Z")

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I used SQL Server 2005 for 18 months for a rails application. I recall  
having to use both freetds and unixodbc to get the connection to work.  
I’m a little hazy on this, but I think one is a higher level  
communication protocol, and one is a lower level communication  
protocol. Google the rest if it helps