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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. Neo4j vs. STSdb

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. IBM Db2 vs. Informix vs. Neo4j vs. STSdb

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonIBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2  Xexclude from comparisonInformix  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSTSdb  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.Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/LinuxA secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things dataScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsKey-Value Store with special method for indexing infooptimized for high performance using a special indexing method
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infoSince Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDBRelational DBMS infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDBGraph DBMSKey-value store
Secondary database modelsDocument store
RDF store infoin Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS infowith Db2 Spatial Extender
Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS infowith Informix TimeSeries Extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.84
Rank#100  Overall
#51  Relational DBMS
Score125.90
Rank#9  Overall
#6  Relational DBMS
Score17.12
Rank#34  Overall
#21  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score0.10
Rank#357  Overall
#51  Key-value stores
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.ibm.com/­products/­db2www.ibm.com/­products/­informixneo4j.comgithub.com/­STSSoft/­STSdb4
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docswww.ibm.com/­docs/­en/­db2informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/­support/­knowledgecenter/­SSGU8G/­welcomeIfxServers.html
neo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleIBMIBM, HCL Technologies infoEffective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.Neo4j, Inc.STS Soft SC
Initial release20171983 infohost version198420072011
Current release12.1, October 201614.10.FC5, November 20205.20, May 20244.0.8, September 2015
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercial infofree version is availablecommercial infofree developer edition availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoGPLv2, commercial license available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnononono
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 C++C, C++ and JavaJava, ScalaC#
Server operating systemshostedAIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS
AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypesyesyes infoprimitive types and user defined types (classes)
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.no
Secondary indexesyesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneno
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yesyesnono
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
ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries infoMongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery
JDBC
JSON API infoMongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
.NET Client API
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic
.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C#
Java
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyesyesyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersnoyesyesyes infovia event handlerno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoonly with Windows/Unix/Linux VersionShardingyes using Neo4j Fabricnone
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.yes infowith separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynone
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 ConsistencyCausal 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 integrityyesyesyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDACIDACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes
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 with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controlsUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)no
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerIBM Db2 infoformerly named DB2 or IBM Database 2InformixNeo4jSTSdb
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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