DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Informix vs. LokiJS vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Informix vs. LokiJS vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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.

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

In-memory JavaScript DBMS

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Document store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.89
Rank	#103	Overall
	#52	Relational DBMS

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	0.43
Rank	#264	Overall
	#42	Document stores

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.ibm.com/products/informix

github.com/techfort/LokiJS

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

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

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

techfort.github.io/LokiJS

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

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

Developer

Google

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Microsoft

Initial release

2017

1984

2014

1989

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

hosted

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

yes

JSON 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

via views

yes

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

yes

SQL-like query language

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
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

JavaScript API

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

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

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

JavaScript

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

View functions in JavaScript

JavaScript

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

Triggers

yes

JavaScript

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

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.

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

none

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

yes

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

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

ACID

atomic operations within a single collection possible

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Serialization of a DB in a Node.JS/Cordova/PhoneGap environment. Usage of the IndexedDB-API in a browser.

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)

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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