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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. GridDB vs. Neo4j vs. Spark SQL

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. GridDB vs. Neo4j vs. Spark SQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonGridDB  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSpark SQL  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionA 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.Scalable in-memory time series database optimized for IoT and Big DataScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsSpark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processing
Primary database modelRelational DBMSTime Series DBMSGraph DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsKey-value store
Relational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.89
Rank#103  Overall
#52  Relational DBMS
Score1.95
Rank#128  Overall
#10  Time Series DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score18.96
Rank#33  Overall
#20  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannergriddb.netneo4j.comspark.apache.org/­sql
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsdocs.griddb.netneo4j.com/­docsspark.apache.org/­docs/­latest/­sql-programming-guide.html
DeveloperGoogleToshiba CorporationNeo4j, Inc.Apache Software Foundation
Initial release2017201320072014
Current release5.1, August 20225.19, April 20243.5.0 ( 2.13), September 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoAGPL version 3 and Apache License, version 2.0 , commercial license (standard and advanced editions) also 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, ScalaScala
Server operating systemshostedLinuxLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
Data schemeyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infonumerical, string, blob, geometry, boolean, timestampyesyes
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 infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneno
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011SQL92, SQL-like TQL (Toshiba Query Language)noSQL-like DML and DDL statements
APIs and other access methodsgRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Java
Python
R
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnonoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersnoyesyes infovia event handlerno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingShardingyes using Neo4j Fabricyes, utilizing Spark Core
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Source-replica replicationCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud DataflowConnector for using GridDB as an input source and output destination for Hadoop MapReduce jobsno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate consistency within container, eventual consistency across containersCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integritynoyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACID at container levelACIDno
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)Access rights for users can be defined per databaseUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)no
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerGridDBNeo4jSpark SQL
Specific characteristicsGridDB is a highly scalable, in-memory time series database optimized for IoT and...
» more
Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantages1. Optimized for IoT Equipped with Toshiba's proprietary key-container data model...
» more
Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosFactory IoT, Automative Industry, Energy, BEMS, Smart Community, Monitoring system.
» more
Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersDenso International [see use case ] An Electric Power company [see use case ] Ishinomaki...
» more
Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsGitHub trending repository
» more
Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsOpen Source license (AGPL v3 & Apache v2) Commercial license (subscription)
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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