DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. HarperDB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. HarperDB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Microsoft SQL Server

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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.

Ultra-low latency distributed database with an intuitive REST API supporting NoSQL and SQL (including joins). Deployment of functions and databases simultaneously with a consolidated node-level architecture.

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.84
Rank	#100	Overall
	#51	Relational DBMS

Score	0.60
Rank	#244	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	76.78
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.harperdb.io

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

docs.harperdb.io/docs

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

Developer

Google

HarperDB

Microsoft

Initial release

2017

2010

1989

Current release

3.1, August 2021

V12

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free community edition available

commercial

restricted free version is available

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.

SQLServer Flex @ STACKIT offers a managed version of SQL Server with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

Node.js

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X

hosted

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

dynamic schema

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

SQL-like data manipulation statements

yes

APIs and other access methods

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC

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

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C#
C++
ColdFusion
D
Dart
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
MatLab
Objective C
Perl
PHP
PowerShell
Prolog
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

Transact SQL

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

A table resides as a whole on one (or more) nodes in a cluster

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

yes, with always 3 replicas available

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

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

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

Atomic execution of specific operations

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, using LMDB

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users and roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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.