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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. HEAVY.AI vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Neo4j vs. TimesTen

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. HEAVY.AI vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Neo4j vs. TimesTen

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonHEAVY.AI infoFormerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonTimesTen  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.A high performance, column-oriented RDBMS, specifically developed to harness the massive parallelism of modern CPU and GPU hardwareDatabase as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL ServerScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsIn-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.84
Rank#100  Overall
#51  Relational DBMS
Score1.64
Rank#145  Overall
#67  Relational DBMS
Score76.78
Rank#16  Overall
#11  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score1.36
Rank#161  Overall
#75  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannergithub.com/­heavyai/­heavydb
www.heavy.ai
azure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­products/­azure-sql/­databaseneo4j.comwww.oracle.com/­database/­technologies/­related/­timesten.html
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsdocs.heavy.aidocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­azure-sqlneo4j.com/­docsdocs.oracle.com/­database/­timesten-18.1
DeveloperGoogleHEAVY.AI, Inc.MicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP infooriginally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005
Initial release20172016201020071998
Current release5.10, January 2022V125.20, May 202411 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache Version 2; enterprise edition availablecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availablecommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnoyesnono
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++ and CUDAC++Java, Scala
Server operating systemshostedLinuxhostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyesyes
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.nonoyesno
Secondary indexesyesnoyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yesyesnoyes
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
Thrift
Vega
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC/Thrift
Python
.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C
C++
Java
PL/SQL
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnonoTransact SQLyes infoUser defined Procedures and FunctionsPL/SQL
Triggersnonoyesyes infovia event handlerno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoRound robinyes using Neo4j Fabricnone
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Multi-source replicationyes, with always 3 replicas availableCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlyMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integritynoyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationnoACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyesyes infoby means of logfiles and checkpoints
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesyes
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-standardfine 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 SpannerHEAVY.AI infoFormerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022Microsoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL AzureNeo4jTimesTen
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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