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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure Cosmos DB infoformer name was Azure DocumentDB  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  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.Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database serviceFully managed big data interactive analytics platform
Primary database modelRelational DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store
Relational DBMS infocolumn oriented
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMSDocument store infoIf a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-types/­dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store infothis is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine infosupport for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorer/­time-series-analysis
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.56
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Score22.94
Rank#26  Overall
#4  Document stores
#2  Graph DBMS
#3  Key-value stores
#2  Wide column stores
Score3.00
Rank#86  Overall
#47  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerazure.microsoft.com/­services/­cosmos-dbazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorer
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docslearn.microsoft.com/­azure/­cosmos-dbdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorer
DeveloperGoogleMicrosoftMicrosoft
Initial release201720142019
Current releasecloud service with continuous releases
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercialcommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Server operating systemshostedhostedhosted
Data schemeyesschema-freeFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infoJSON typesyes infobool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-types
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.noyes
Secondary indexesyesyes infoAll properties auto-indexed by defaultall fields are automatically indexed
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011SQL-like query languageKusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subset
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
DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API
Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python
.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoJavaScriptYes, possible languages: KQL, Python, R
TriggersnoJavaScriptyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicy
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud service
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.yes infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyes infoImplicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowwith Hadoop integration infoIntegration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*Spark connector (open source): github.com/­Azure/­azure-kusto-spark
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyBounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infoConsistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integritynono
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationMulti-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partitionno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Access rights can be defined down to the item levelAzure Active Directory Authentication

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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerMicrosoft Azure Cosmos DB infoformer name was Azure DocumentDBMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer
Recent citations in the news

Google Cloud Introduces HDD Tier for Spanner Database, Cutting Cold Storage Costs by 80%
22 March 2025, infoq.com

New features make Google's Spanner a database for AI
1 August 2024, TechTarget

Google Cloud Spanner gets dual-region configuration option
23 July 2024, InfoWorld

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2 August 2024, techzine.eu

Google Releases Spanner Graph into General Availability
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Universal Destinations & Experiences proactively improves guest satisfaction with Azure Data Explorer
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16 August 2022, Gigaom

Azure Data Explorer: Log and telemetry analytics benchmark
16 August 2022, Microsoft Azure

Azure Data Explorer Supports Native Ingestion from Amazon S3
7 September 2022, infoq.com

Azure Data Explorer gets new engine, numerous enhancements and Synapse integration
14 October 2020, ZDNET

provided by Google News



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