DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Informix vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB vs. SwayDB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Informix vs. PostgreSQL vs. RethinkDB vs. SwayDB

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

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

DBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime.

An embeddable, non-blocking, type-safe key-value store for single or multiple disks and in-memory storage

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

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

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Document store

Key-value store

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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	645.54
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	2.74
Rank	#105	Overall
	#19	Document stores

Score	0.00
Rank	#382	Overall
	#59	Key-value stores

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.ibm.com/products/informix

www.postgresql.org

rethinkdb.com

swaydb.simer.au

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

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

www.postgresql.org/docs

rethinkdb.com/docs

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.

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

The Linux Foundation

since July 2017

Simer Plaha

Initial release

2017

1984

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2009

2018

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

16.3, May 2024

2.4.1, August 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

GNU Affero GPL V3.0

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.

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.

Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

C++

Scala

Server operating systems

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

yes

string, binary, float, bool, date, geometry

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

yes

standard with numerous extensions

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

community-supported driver
C#

community-supported driver
C++

community-supported driver
Clojure

community-supported driver
Dart

community-supported driver
Erlang

community-supported driver
Go

community-supported driver
Haskell

community-supported driver
Java

official driver
JavaScript (Node.js)

official driver
Lisp

community-supported driver
Lua

community-supported driver
Objective-C

community-supported driver
Perl

community-supported driver
PHP

community-supported driver
Python

official driver
Ruby

official driver
Scala

community-supported driver

Java
Kotlin
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Triggers

yes

Client-side triggers through changefeeds

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

Sharding

range based

none

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

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Source-replica replication

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

yes

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

ACID

Atomic single-document operations

Atomic execution of operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC based

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

yes

users and table-level permissions

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.

Related products and services

3rd parties

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
» more

Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
» more

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Meet some database management systems you are likely to hear more about in the future
4 August 2014, Paul Andlinger

show all

Conferences, events and webinars

more DBMS events

Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor
Webinar, 10-11am CT / 4-5pm BST, 22 May 2024

Recent citations in the news

Google Improves Cloud Spanner: More Compute and Storage without Price Increase
14 October 2023, InfoQ.com

Google makes its Cloud Spanner database service faster and more cost-efficient
11 October 2023, SiliconANGLE News

Google turns up the heat on AWS, claims Cloud Spanner is half the cost of DynamoDB
11 October 2023, TechCrunch

Google Spanner: When Do You Need to Move to It?
11 September 2023, hackernoon.com

More AI Added to Google Cloud's Databases
28 February 2024, Datanami

provided by Google News

IBM Informix: A key part of IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy
11 January 2024, ibm.com

Unlock the value of your Informix data for advanced analytics and AI with watsonx.data
24 April 2024, ibm.com

IBM Informix review: What you need to know about the software
12 December 2022, TechRepublic

IBM Informix Database in the Cloud | AWS News Blog
1 May 2009, AWS Blog

Taiwan charges 4 individuals for helping China poach tech talent
17 October 2023, Taiwan News

provided by Google News

Let PostgreSQL Pick An Index For You
20 May 2024, iProgrammer

Continuously replicate Amazon DynamoDB changes to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL using AWS Lambda | Amazon ...
14 May 2024, AWS Blog

Introducing OCI Database with PostgreSQL: Completing Our Cloud Database Suite for Every Need
14 November 2023, blogs.oracle.com

ServiceNow trades MariaDB for RaptorDB (PostgreSQL)
13 May 2024, Techzine Europe

General availability: Microsoft Entra ID integration with Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL | Azure updates
13 March 2024, azure.microsoft.com

provided by Google News

MongoDB: The Popular Database for IoT
15 August 2023, Open Source For You

How to Use RethinkDB with Node.js Applications — SitePoint
16 December 2015, SitePoint

Stripe acquires team behind NoSQL database startup RethinkDB
5 October 2016, VentureBeat

RethinkDB is dead, and MongoDB isn't what killed it
24 January 2017, TechRepublic

How to deploy RethinkDB using Docker
14 February 2018, Packt Hub

provided by Google News

Share this page