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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Lovefield vs. MonetDB vs. Neo4j vs. Yaacomo

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Lovefield vs. MonetDB vs. Neo4j vs. Yaacomo

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonLovefield  Xexclude from comparisonMonetDB  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonYaacomo  Xexclude from comparison
Yaacomo seems to be discontinued and is removed from the DB-Engines ranking
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 JavaScriptA relational database management system that stores data in columnsScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsOpenCL based in-memory RDBMS, designed for efficiently utilizing the hardware via parallel computing
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial 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
Score1.72
Rank#145  Overall
#67  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannergoogle.github.io/­lovefieldwww.monetdb.orgneo4j.comyaacomo.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsgithub.com/­google/­lovefield/­blob/­master/­docs/­spec_index.mdwww.monetdb.org/­Documentationneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleGoogleMonetDB BVNeo4j, Inc.Q2WEB GmbH
Initial release20172014200420072009
Current release2.1.12, February 2017Dec2023 (11.49), December 20235.19, April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoMozilla Public License 2.0Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availablecommercial
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 languageJavaScriptCJava, Scala
Server operating systemshostedserver-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js) infotested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, SafariFreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Android
Linux
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyesyes
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 indexesyesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011SQL-like query language infovia JavaScript builder patternyes infoSQL 2003 with some extensionsnoyes
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
JDBC
native C library infoMAPI library (MonetDB application programming interface)
ODBC
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
JavaScriptC
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnonoyes, in SQL, C, Ryes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
TriggersnoUsing read-only observersyesyes infovia event handleryes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingnoneSharding via remote tablesyes using Neo4j Fabrichorizontal partitioning
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.nonenone infoSource-replica replication available in experimental statusCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlySource-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownononono
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
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyesyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Databaseyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes infousing MemoryDByes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)nofine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerLovefieldMonetDBNeo4jYaacomo
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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