DBMS > Couchbase vs. Google Cloud Spanner

System Properties Comparison Couchbase vs. Google Cloud Spanner

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A distributed document store with integrated cache, a powerful search engine, in-built operational and analytical capabilities, and an embedded mobile database

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 model

Document store
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension
Search engine
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS
Wide column store

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	13.82
Rank	#38	Overall
	#5	Document stores
	#3	Vector DBMS

Score	2.56
Rank	#97	Overall
	#50	Relational DBMS

Website

www.couchbase.com

cloud.google.com/spanner

Technical documentation

docs.couchbase.com

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

Developer

Couchbase, Inc.

Google

Initial release

2011

2017

Current release

Server: 7.6, March 2024; Mobile: 3.3, August 2024; Couchbase Capella (DBaaS), September 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Business Source License (BSL 1.1); Commercial licenses also available

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C, C++, Go and Erlang

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL++, extends ANSI SQL to JSON for operational, transactional, and analytic use cases

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

APIs and other access methods

CLI 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

At present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Kotlin
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Functions and timers in JavaScript and UDFs in Java, Python, SQL++

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Automatic Sharding

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

by using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

Ephemeral buckets

User concepts

Access control

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

DB-Engines blog posts

Couchbase climbs up the DB-Engines Ranking, increasing its popularity by 10% every month
2 June 2014, Matthias Gelbmann

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Recent citations in the 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

Couchbase Accelerates AI Agentic Application Development With New Database Services
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 Releases Spanner Graph into General Availability
19 February 2025, infoq.com

Google Cloud expands its database portfolio with new AI capabilities
1 August 2024, TechCrunch

provided by Google News

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