DB-EnginesextremeDB - Data management wherever you need itEnglish
Deutsch
Knowledge Base of Relational and NoSQL Database Management Systemsprovided by Redgate Software

DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. RethinkDB

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. RethinkDB

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFirebase Realtime Database  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonRethinkDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionCloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.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.DBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime.
Primary database modelDocument storeRelational DBMSDocument store
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score13.49
Rank#39  Overall
#6  Document stores
Score2.71
Rank#93  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Score2.33
Rank#104  Overall
#19  Document stores
Websitefirebase.google.com/­products/­realtime-databasecloud.google.com/­spannerrethinkdb.com
Technical documentationfirebase.google.com/­docs/­databasecloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsrethinkdb.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogle infoacquired by Google 2014GoogleThe Linux Foundation infosince July 2017
Initial release201220172009
Current release2.4.1, August 2020
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialcommercialOpen Source infoApache Version 2
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageC++
Server operating systemshostedhostedLinux
OS X
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeyesschema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes infostring, binary, float, bool, date, geometry
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.nonono
Secondary indexesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011no
APIs and other access methodsAndroid
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API
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 languagesJava
JavaScript
Objective-C
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C infocommunity-supported driver
C# infocommunity-supported driver
C++ infocommunity-supported driver
Clojure infocommunity-supported driver
Dart infocommunity-supported driver
Erlang infocommunity-supported driver
Go infocommunity-supported driver
Haskell infocommunity-supported driver
Java infoofficial driver
JavaScript (Node.js) infoofficial driver
Lisp infocommunity-supported driver
Lua infocommunity-supported driver
Objective-C infocommunity-supported driver
Perl infocommunity-supported driver
PHP infocommunity-supported driver
Python infoofficial driver
Ruby infoofficial driver
Scala infocommunity-supported driver
Server-side scripts infoStored procedureslimited functionality with using 'rules'no
TriggersCallbacks are triggered when data changesnoClient-side triggers through changefeeds
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding inforange based
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Source-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowyes
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency infoif the client is offline
Immediate Consistency infoif the client is online
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datayesACID infoStrict serializable isolationAtomic single-document operations
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes infoMVCC based
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.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlyes, based on authentication and database rulesAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)yes infousers and table-level permissions

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources
Firebase Realtime DatabaseGoogle Cloud SpannerRethinkDB
DB-Engines blog posts

Cloud-based DBMS's popularity grows at high rates
12 December 2019, Paul Andlinger

show all

Meet some database management systems you are likely to hear more about in the future
4 August 2014, Paul Andlinger

show all

Recent citations in the news

Supabase vs. Firebase: Which BaaS is Best for Your App?
14 August 2024, Netguru

Instant harkens back to a pre-Google Firebase
2 October 2024, TechCrunch

Inside FireScam : An Information Stealer with Spyware Capabilities
30 December 2024, CYFIRMA

Google Cloud beefs up database services for generative AI workloads
2 October 2024, SiliconANGLE News

(PDF) A performance analysis of a cloud database on mobile devices
22 October 2024, ResearchGate

provided by Google News

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

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

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

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

Google's Cloud Spanner Now Spans Continents … Like It's Supposed to Do
31 May 2024, Data Center Knowledge

provided by Google News

How to Use RethinkDB with Node.js Applications
16 December 2015, SitePoint

An introduction to building realtime apps with RethinkDB
4 June 2015, devm.io

Installing and Using RethinkDB on Ubuntu
8 April 2022, Open Source For You

5 Databases That You Can Use For Free
11 July 2021, Towards Data Science

NoSQL Software Market May See Big Move | MongoDB, MarkLogic, RethinkDB
10 June 2022, openPR

provided by Google News



Share this page

Featured Products

RaimaDB logo

RaimaDB, embedded database for mission-critical applications. When performance, footprint and reliability matters.
Try RaimaDB for free.

SingleStore logo

The data platform to build your intelligent applications.
Try it free.

Datastax Astra logo

Bring all your data to Generative AI applications with vector search enabled by the most scalable
vector database available.
Try for Free

Neo4j logo

See for yourself how a graph database can make your life easier.
Use Neo4j online for free.

Milvus logo

Vector database designed for GenAI, fully equipped for enterprise implementation.
Try Managed Milvus for Free

Present your product here