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DBMS > Amazon Aurora vs. CockroachDB vs. Google Cloud Spanner

System Properties Comparison Amazon Aurora vs. CockroachDB vs. Google Cloud Spanner

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameAmazon Aurora  Xexclude from comparisonCockroachDB  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFully managed relational database service built for the cloud providing unparalleled high performance and availability at global scale for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and DSQLCockroachDB is a distributed database architected for modern cloud applications. It is wire compatible with PostgreSQL and backed by a Key-Value Store, which is either RocksDB or a purpose-built derivative, called Pebble.A horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score7.33
Rank#46  Overall
#29  Relational DBMS
Score4.17
Rank#65  Overall
#36  Relational DBMS
Score2.56
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Websiteaws.amazon.com/­rds/­aurorawww.cockroachlabs.comcloud.google.com/­spanner
Technical documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­AuroraUserGuide/­CHAP_AuroraOverview.html
docs.aws.amazon.com/­aurora-dsql/­latest/­userguide/­what-is-aurora-dsql.html
www.cockroachlabs.com/­docscloud.google.com/­spanner/­docs
Social network pagesLinkedIn
DeveloperAmazonCockroach LabsGoogle
Initial release201520152017
Current releaseAurora DSQL, November 2024 (preview), PostgreSQL: docs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­AuroraPostgreSQLReleaseNotes/­AuroraPostgreSQL.Updates.html , MySQL: docs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­AuroraMySQLReleaseNotes/­AuroraMySQL.release-calendars.html24.1.0, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache 2.0, commercial license availablecommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnoyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languagePostgreSQL/MySQL: C, C++, Aurora DSQL: RustGo
Server operating systemsAmazon LinuxLinux
macOS
Windows
hosted
Data schemeyesdynamic schemayes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.yesnono
Secondary indexesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes, MySQL and PostgreSQL dialectsyes, wire compatible with PostgreSQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011
APIs and other access methodsDSQL API: docs.aws.amazon.com/­aurora-dsql/­latest/­userguide/­CHAP_api_reference.html
MySQL wire protocol
PostgreSQL wire protocol
RDS Data API: docs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­UserGuide/­ProgrammingGuide.html
JDBCgRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
Supported programming languagesAda
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust
Scheme
Tcl
C#
C++
Clojure
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresPL/pgSQL, MySQL stored program language, APG trusted language extensionsnono
TriggersAurora MySQL: Yes. Aurora PostgreSQL: Yes. Aurora DSQL: No.nono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesDBMS table partitioning, Horizontal storage partitioning, Sharding, Distributed horizontal partitioning (DSQL)horizontal partitioning (by key range) infoall tables are translated to an ordered KV store and then broken down into 64MB ranges, which are then used as replicas in RAFTSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesFull replication
Logical replication
Snapshot replication
Transactional replication
Multi-source replication using RAFTMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonoyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflow
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate/Strong Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyesyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID, Multi-statementACIDACID infoStrict serializable isolation
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of dataMultiversion concurrency control (MVCC) with fully compatible MySQL and PostgreSQL options. Optimistic concurrency control (OCC) in Aurora DSQL.yesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentData is replicated across 3 Availability Zones (AZs) within a single AWS Region. Active-active multi-Region high availability across 3 Regions (2 active, 1 witness) and automated failover recovery with Aurora DSQL. Automated, continuous backup of data with point in time restore. Fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system.yesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesnono
User concepts infoAccess controlRole based permissions
Row level security
Role-based access controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

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More resources
Amazon AuroraCockroachDBGoogle Cloud Spanner
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