DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. VoltDB

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

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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

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	2.56
Rank	#97	Overall
	#50	Relational DBMS

Score	22.94
Rank	#26	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#2	Wide column stores

Score	1.21
Rank	#164	Overall
	#74	Relational DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Google

Microsoft

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2017

2014

2010

Current release

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

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.

Implementation language

Java, C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON types

yes

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

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

SQL-like query language

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC

At 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

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON 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

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

Java

Triggers

JavaScript

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

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

User concepts

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

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

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More resources

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 adds graph processing to Spanner, SQL support to Bigtable
1 August 2024, InfoWorld

Google Cloud adds graph and vector search features to Spanner database
2 August 2024, techzine.eu

Google’s Plan to Make GCP ‘The Best Cloud for Machine Learning’
5 May 2025, SDx Central

provided by Google News

Microsoft Announces General Availability of Data API Builder for Azure Cosmos DB
6 July 2024, infoq.com

Microsoft’s new DocumentDB rethinks NoSQL on PostgreSQL
30 January 2025, InfoWorld

Crediclub saves 96% per month in audit processes and analyzes 150 meetings per hour with Azure
12 November 2024, Microsoft

Microsoft Announces Open-Source DocumentDB NoSQL Database
26 January 2025, Phoronix

Building Planet-Scale .NET Apps with Azure Cosmos DB
4 June 2024, Visual Studio Magazine

provided by Google News

VoltDB Launches Active(N) Lossless Cross Data Center Replication
31 August 2021, PR Newswire

VoltDB Aims for Fast Big Data Development
29 January 2015, ADTmag

VoltDB Announces Key New Hires
26 October 2021, citybiz

MemSQL, VoltDB Vie For In-Memory Big Data Role
12 February 2015, InformationWeek

VoltDB Adds Geospatial Support to Its Operational InMemory SQL Database
30 January 2016, App Developer Magazine

provided by Google News

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