DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimesTen vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimesTen vs. VoltDB

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.

Elastic, large scale data warehouse service leveraging the broad eco-system of SQL Server

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

In-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle

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

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

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

Score	2.89
Rank	#105	Overall
	#53	Relational DBMS

Score	22.71
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	645.05
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	1.35
Rank	#165	Overall
	#75	Relational DBMS

Score	1.46
Rank	#159	Overall
	#74	Relational DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

azure.microsoft.com/services/synapse-analytics

www.postgresql.org

www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/timesten.html

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

docs.microsoft.com/azure/synapse-analytics

www.postgresql.org/docs

docs.oracle.com/database/timesten-18.1

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Google

Microsoft

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Oracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP

originally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2017

2016

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

1998

2010

Current release

16.2, February 2024

11 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

BSD

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.

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.

Implementation language

C++

Java, C++

Server operating systems

hosted

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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.

yes

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

yes

standard with numerous extensions

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C#
Java
PHP

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C
C++
Java
PL/SQL

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Transact SQL

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

PL/SQL

Java

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

none

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/sql-data-warehouse/sql-data-warehouse-table-constraints

yes

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

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

by means of logfiles and checkpoints

yes

Snapshots and command logging

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

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

More information provided by the system vendor

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

3rd parties

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
» more

Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
» more

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
» more

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

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

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Conferences, events and webinars

more DBMS events

Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor
Webinar, 10-11am CT / 4-5pm BST, 22 May 2024

Recent citations in the news

Google Improves Cloud Spanner: More Compute and Storage without Price Increase
14 October 2023, InfoQ.com

Google makes its Cloud Spanner database service faster and more cost-efficient
11 October 2023, SiliconANGLE News

Google turns up the heat on AWS, claims Cloud Spanner is half the cost of DynamoDB
11 October 2023, TechCrunch

Google Spanner: When Do You Need to Move to It?
11 September 2023, hackernoon.com

Google Cloud Spanner competes directly with Amazon DynamoDB
12 October 2023, Techzine Europe

provided by Google News

Azure Synapse vs. Databricks: Data Platform Comparison 2024
26 March 2024, eWeek

Migrate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics to Amazon Redshift using AWS SCT | Amazon Web Services
18 October 2023, AWS Blog

Azure Synapse Analytics: Everything you need to know about Microsoft's cloud analytics platform
24 September 2023, DataScientest

Azure Synapse Runtime for Apache Spark 3.2 End of Support | Azure updates
22 March 2024, Microsoft

Azure Synapse Link for Cosmos DB: New Analytics Capabilities
10 November 2023, InfoQ.com

provided by Google News

Breaking Boundaries: PostgreSQL 16 is now available on IBM Cloud
17 April 2024, IBM

pgEdge Distributed PostgreSQL Introduces Automatic DDL Replication and Snowflake Sequences for Postgres
17 April 2024, Yahoo Finance

Modernize your data architecture using Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and Amazon QuickSight | Amazon Web Services
12 April 2024, AWS Blog

Introducing OCI Database with PostgreSQL: Completing Our Cloud Database Suite for Every Need
14 November 2023, Oracle

PostgreSQL or MySQL: What Should I Choose for My Full-Stack Project?
10 April 2024, hackernoon.com

provided by Google News

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

VoltDB Combines Streaming, Global Data
1 February 2017, Datanami

VoltDB Adds Geospatial Support, Cross-Site Replication
28 January 2016, The New Stack

VoltDB Upgrades Power, Security of Its In-Memory Database
1 February 2017, eWeek

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

provided by Google News

Share this page