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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. IBM Cloudant vs. LokiJS vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. IBM Cloudant vs. LokiJS vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonIBM Cloudant  Xexclude from comparisonLokiJS  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  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.Database as a Service offering based on Apache CouchDBIn-memory JavaScript DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSDocument storeDocument storeGraph DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.84
Rank#100  Overall
#51  Relational DBMS
Score2.75
Rank#104  Overall
#19  Document stores
Score0.49
Rank#260  Overall
#42  Document stores
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.ibm.com/­products/­cloudantgithub.com/­techfort/­LokiJSneo4j.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docscloud.ibm.com/­docs/­Cloudanttechfort.github.io/­LokiJSneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleIBM, Apache Software Foundation infoIBM acquired Cloudant in February 2014Neo4j, Inc.
Initial release2017201020142007
Current release5.20, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialcommercialOpen SourceOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesnono
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 languageErlangJavaScriptJava, Scala
Server operating systemshostedhostedserver-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-freeschema-freeschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesnonoyes
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 infovia viewsyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011nonono
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
RESTful HTTP/JSON APIJavaScript APIBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C#
Java
JavaScript
Objective-C
PHP
Ruby
JavaScript.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoView functions (Map-Reduce) in JavaScriptView functions in JavaScriptyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnoyesyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingShardingnoneyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication
noneCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowyesyesno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyEventual ConsistencynoneCausal 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 integritynonoyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationno infoatomic operations within a document possibleno infoatomic operations within a single collection possibleACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyes infoOptimistic lockingyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoSerialization of a DB in a Node.JS/Cordova/PhoneGap environment. Usage of the IndexedDB-API in a browser.yes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nonoyes
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 databasenoUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerIBM CloudantLokiJSNeo4j
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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