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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Lovefield vs. Memcached vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Lovefield vs. Memcached vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonLovefield  Xexclude from comparisonMemcached  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.Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScriptIn-memory key-value store, originally intended for cachingScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSKey-value storeGraph DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.89
Rank#103  Overall
#52  Relational DBMS
Score0.29
Rank#293  Overall
#133  Relational DBMS
Score19.42
Rank#32  Overall
#4  Key-value stores
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannergoogle.github.io/­lovefieldwww.memcached.orgneo4j.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsgithub.com/­google/­lovefield/­blob/­master/­docs/­spec_index.mdgithub.com/­memcached/­memcached/­wikineo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleGoogleDanga Interactive infooriginally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournalNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release2017201420032007
Current release2.1.12, February 20171.6.25, March 20245.19, April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoBSD licenseOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnonono
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 languageJavaScriptCJava, Scala
Server operating systemshostedserver-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js) infotested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, SafariFreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesschema-freeschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesnoyes
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.nono
Secondary indexesyesyesnoyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011SQL-like query language infovia JavaScript builder patternnono
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
Proprietary protocolBolt 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
JavaScript.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnononoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
TriggersnoUsing read-only observersnoyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingnonenoneyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.nonenone infoRepcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallityCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate 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 integrityyesnoyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Databasenoyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes infousing MemoryDB
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)noyes infousing SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocolUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerLovefieldMemcachedNeo4j
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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