DBMS > etcd vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Memcached vs. Redis vs. Riak TS

System Properties Comparison etcd vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Memcached vs. Redis vs. Riak TS

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.

In-memory key-value store, originally intended for caching

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Riak TS is a distributed NoSQL database optimized for time series data and based on Riak KV

Primary database model

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	7.25
Rank	#54	Overall
	#5	Key-value stores

Score	2.89
Rank	#103	Overall
	#52	Relational DBMS

Score	19.42
Rank	#32	Overall
	#4	Key-value stores

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	0.20
Rank	#319	Overall
	#27	Time Series DBMS

Website

etcd.io
github.com/etcd-io/etcd

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.memcached.org

redis.com
redis.io

Technical documentation

etcd.io/docs
github.com/etcd-io/etcd/tree/master/Documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

www.tiot.jp/riak-docs/riak/ts/latest

Developer

Google

Danga Interactive

originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournal

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Open Source, formerly Basho Technologies

Initial release

2017

2003

2009

2015

Current release

3.4, August 2019

1.6.25, March 2024

7.2.4, January 2024

3.0.0, September 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

commercial

Open Source

BSD license

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

Open Source

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 Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

Erlang

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
Windows

experimental

hosted

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Linux
OS X

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

restricted

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

with RediSQL module

yes, limited

APIs and other access methods

gRPC
JSON over HTTP

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC

At present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API

Proprietary protocol

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Tcl

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

unofficial client library
C#
C++

unofficial client library
Clojure

unofficial client library
Dart

unofficial client library
Erlang
Go

unofficial client library
Groovy

unofficial client library
Haskell

unofficial client library
Java
JavaScript

unofficial client library
Lisp

unofficial client library
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

unofficial client library
Smalltalk

unofficial client library

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Erlang

Triggers

yes, watching key changes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

yes

pre-commit hooks and post-commit hooks

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Using Raft consensus algorithm to ensure data replication with strong consistency among multiple replicas.

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

none

Repcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallity

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

selectable replication factor

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

through RedisGears

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

by using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity

links between datasets can be stored

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

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)

yes

using SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocol

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

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