How many individual instances SQL Server can a single physical machine?

How many instances of SQL Server can be installed in a single system?

You can install as many as 50 SQL Server instances on a Windows Server; obviously, we do not recommend this. In a Windows failover cluster, the maximum number of SQL Server instances is reduced by half if you're using shared cluster drives. Only one of the SQL Server instances on a server can be the default instance.

Can you run multiple SQL servers on a single machine?

Yes, you can run multiple databases in a single instance of SQL Server on the same machine.

How many instances of the database engine can you install on a single server?

A single SQL Server can have 1 default instance and up to 15 named instances of the relational engine.

Can one database have multiple instances?

Database administrators might create multiple instances of the same database for different purposes. For example, an organization with an employees database might have three instances: Production instances: Administrators use these instances to contain live data.