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DBMS > Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Bigtable  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonTimescaleDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionGoogle's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.Microsofts flagship relational DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsA time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL
Primary database modelKey-value store
Wide column store
Relational DBMSGraph DBMSTime Series DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Relational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score3.26
Rank#92  Overall
#13  Key-value stores
#8  Wide column stores
Score824.29
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score4.64
Rank#71  Overall
#4  Time Series DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­bigtablewww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.comwww.timescale.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­bigtable/­docslearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docsdocs.timescale.com
DeveloperGoogleMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.Timescale
Initial release2015198920072017
Current releaseSQL Server 2022, November 20225.19, April 20242.13.0, November 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoApache 2.0
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC++Java, ScalaC
Server operating systemshostedLinux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or datenoyesyesnumerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types
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.noyesyes
Secondary indexesnoyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoyesnoyes infofull PostgreSQL SQL syntax
APIs and other access methodsgRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsuser defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell
Triggersnoyesyes infovia event handleryes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingtables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j Fabricyes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesInternal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zonesyes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlySource-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas info
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)Immediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataAtomic single-row operationsACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesno
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud BigtableMicrosoft SQL ServerNeo4jTimescaleDB
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsNeo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsGPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
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