DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Our visitors often compare Google Cloud Spanner and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB with Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB and Google BigQuery.

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.

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

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

Score	1.79
Rank	#117	Overall
	#61	Relational DBMS

Score	29.08
Rank	#24	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db

Developer

Google

Microsoft

Initial release

2017

2014

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Cloud-based only info

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) info

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Server operating systems

hosted

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

XML support info

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

All properties auto-indexed by default

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
RESTful HTTP API
JDBC info

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

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

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

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

Server-side scripts info

Stored procedures

JavaScript

Triggers

JavaScript

Partitioning methods info

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Replication methods info

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Master-Master replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

with Hadoop integration info

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts info

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Session Consistency
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency info

Consistency level configurable on request level

Foreign keys info

Referential integrity

yes

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

Transaction concepts info

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

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

Concurrency info

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability info

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities info

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

User concepts info

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft™s globally-distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model...
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Competitive advantages

Global distribution Easily build globally-distributed applications without the hassle...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Azure Cosmos DB enables writing globally distributed applications and allows you...
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Key customers

Jet.com, Asos, Real Madrid, Orange Tribes, MSN, Telenor, NextGames, Schneider Electric,...
» more

Market metrics

Gartner Research positions Microsoft as the leader in the Magic Quadrant Operational...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

With Azure Cosmos DB, pay only for the storage you use and the throughput you provision...
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.