DB-EnginesextremeDB - solve IoT connectivity disruptionsEnglish
Deutsch
Knowledge Base of Relational and NoSQL Database Management Systemsprovided by Redgate Software

DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Neo4j

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  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.Fully managed big data interactive analytics platformScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infocolumn orientedGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument 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
Score3.00
Rank#86  Overall
#47  Relational DBMS
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorerneo4j.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorerneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release201720192007
Current releasecloud service with continuous releases5.23, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialcommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageJava, Scala
Server operating systemshostedhostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)schema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infobool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-typesyes
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 indexesyesall fields are automatically indexedyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011Kusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subsetno
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
Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoYes, possible languages: KQL, Python, Ryes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnoyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicyyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.yes infoImplicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud DataflowSpark connector (open source): github.com/­Azure/­azure-kusto-sparkno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integritynoyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationnoACID
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)Azure Active Directory AuthenticationUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerMicrosoft Azure Data ExplorerNeo4j
News

This Week in Neo4j: NODES, Knowledge Graph, Graph Analytics, MCP and more
10 May 2025

Aura Graph Analytics: A Technical Deep Dive
7 May 2025

Introducing Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics: Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy Graph Analytics for Any Data Source
7 May 2025

Agentic GraphRAG for Commercial Contracts
5 May 2025

Simplify Modern Application Development With GraphQL on Neo4j AuraDB
30 April 2025

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources
Google Cloud SpannerMicrosoft Azure Data ExplorerNeo4j
DB-Engines blog posts

Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones
12 June 2019, Amy Hodler & Mark Needham, Neo4j (guest author)

MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking
2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs
22 December 2015, Emil Eifrem (guest author)

show all

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

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

Google Releases Spanner Graph into General Availability
19 February 2025, infoq.com

provided by Google News

Universal Destinations & Experiences proactively improves guest satisfaction with Azure Data Explorer
14 February 2025, Microsoft

Log and Telemetry Analytics Performance Benchmark
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

NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
7 May 2025, theregister.com

Neo4j goes serverless, bringing graph analytics to any data source
7 May 2025, SiliconANGLE

Latest Neo4j release aims to simplify graph technology
7 May 2025, TechTarget

Neo4j Launches Industry's First Graph Analytics Offering For Any Data Platform
7 May 2025, PR Newswire

Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop, Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics, and more software development news
7 May 2025, SD Times

provided by Google News



Share this page

Featured Products

Datastax Astra logo

Bring all your data to Generative AI applications with vector search enabled by the most scalable
vector database available.
Try for Free

SingleStore logo

The data platform to build your intelligent applications.
Try it free.

Milvus logo

Vector database designed for GenAI, fully equipped for enterprise implementation.
Try Managed Milvus for Free

Neo4j logo

See for yourself how a graph database can make your life easier.
Use Neo4j online for free.

RaimaDB logo

RaimaDB, embedded database for mission-critical applications. When performance, footprint and reliability matters.
Try RaimaDB for free.

Present your product here