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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonMongoDB  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.One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructureScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSDocument storeGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMS
Search engine infointegrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS infoTime Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS infocurrently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.70
Rank#100  Overall
#51  Relational DBMS
Score400.93
Rank#5  Overall
#1  Document stores
Score42.70
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.mongodb.comneo4j.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docswww.mongodb.com/­docs/­manualneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleMongoDB, IncNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release201720092007
Current release7.0.5, January 20245.23, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoMongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesno infoMongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)no
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
  • MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.
  • MongoDB Flex @ STACKIT offers managed MongoDB Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC++Java, Scala
Server operating systemshostedLinux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-free infoAlthough schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.schema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infostring, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatialyes
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.no
Secondary indexesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interfaceno
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
GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON
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
Actionscript infounofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure infounofficial driver
ColdFusion infounofficial driver
D infounofficial driver
Dart infounofficial driver
Delphi infounofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy infounofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp infounofficial driver
Lua infounofficial driver
MatLab infounofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell infounofficial driver
Prolog infounofficial driver
Python
R infounofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk infounofficial driver
Swift
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoJavaScriptyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnoyes infoin MongoDB Atlas onlyyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoPartitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.yes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowyesno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency infocan be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency infodefault behaviour
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 integrityno infotypically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possibleyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationMulti-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolationACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infooptional, enabled by defaultyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes infoIn-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Access rights for users and rolesUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerMongoDBNeo4j
Specific characteristicsMongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
» more
Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesBuilt around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
» more
Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosAI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
» more
Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
» more
Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsHundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
» more
Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsMongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
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