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DBMS > Amazon DynamoDB vs. Couchbase vs. Google Cloud Spanner

System Properties Comparison Amazon DynamoDB vs. Couchbase vs. Google Cloud Spanner

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameAmazon DynamoDB  Xexclude from comparisonCouchbase infoOriginally called Membase  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionHosted, scalable database service by Amazon with the data stored in Amazons cloudA distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile databaseA 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 modelDocument store
Key-value store
Document store
Vector DBMS
Relational DBMS
Secondary database modelsKey-value store infooriginating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS infousing the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS
Wide column store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score79.30
Rank#15  Overall
#3  Document stores
#2  Key-value stores
Score13.82
Rank#38  Overall
#5  Document stores
#3  Vector DBMS
Score2.56
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Websiteaws.amazon.com/­dynamodbwww.couchbase.comcloud.google.com/­spanner
Technical documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com/­dynamodbdocs.couchbase.comcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docs
DeveloperAmazonCouchbase, Inc.Google
Initial release201220112017
Current releaseServer: 7.6, March 2024; Mobile: 3.3, August 2024; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), September 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infofree tier for a limited amount of database operationsOpen Source infoBusiness Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also 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 languageC, C++, Go and Erlang
Server operating systemshostedLinux
OS X
Windows
hosted
Data schemeschema-freeschema-freeyes
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.no
Secondary indexesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoSQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use casesyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011
APIs and other access methodsRESTful HTTP APICLI Client
HTTP REST
Kafka Connector
Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs
Spark Connector
Spring Data
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
Supported programming languages.Net
ColdFusion
Erlang
Groovy
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoFunctions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++no
Triggersyes infoby integration with AWS Lambdayes infovia the TAP protocolno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingAutomatic ShardingSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyesMulti-source replication infoincluding cross data center replication
Source-replica replication
Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsno infomay be implemented via Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR)yesyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflow
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be specified for read operations
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infoselectable on a per-operation basis
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyes 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 infoACID across one or more tables within a single AWS account and regionACIDACID infoStrict serializable isolation
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yes infoEphemeral bucketsno
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users and roles can be defined via the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication. Role-base access control.Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

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More resources
Amazon DynamoDBCouchbase infoOriginally called MembaseGoogle Cloud Spanner
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Recent citations in the news

Ingest CSV data to Amazon DynamoDB using AWS Lambda
12 May 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Announcing the end of support for AWS DynamoDB Session State Provider
7 May 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Announcing configurable point-in-time recovery periods for Amazon DynamoDB
7 January 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon DynamoDB re:Invent 2024 recap
19 December 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

New Amazon DynamoDB zero-ETL integration with Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse | Amazon Web Services
3 December 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

provided by Google News

Activist Investor Irenic Capital Builds Stake in Software Maker Couchbase
30 April 2025, Bloomberg.com

Here's Why We're Not At All Concerned With Couchbase's (NASDAQ:BASE) Cash Burn Situation
7 May 2025, Yahoo Finance

Couchbase Unveils Edge Server to Help Organizations Solve Real-World Edge Application Challenges
4 March 2025, PR Newswire

Couchbase’s Regine Nelson brings authentic leadership to employee engagement
26 February 2025, Ragan Communications

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2 December 2024, CRN Magazine

provided by Google News

Google Cloud Introduces HDD Tier for Spanner Database, Cutting Cold Storage Costs by 80%
22 March 2025, infoq.com

New features make Google's Spanner a database for AI
1 August 2024, TechTarget

Google Cloud Spanner gets dual-region configuration option
23 July 2024, InfoWorld

Google Cloud adds graph and vector search features to Spanner database
2 August 2024, techzine.eu

Google Releases Spanner Graph into General Availability
19 February 2025, infoq.com

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