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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. MongoDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. MongoDB vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonMongoDB  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonTimescaleDB  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 infrastructureWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLA time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL
Primary database modelRelational DBMSDocument storeRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Time Series 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
Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
Relational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.69
Rank#101  Overall
#51  Relational DBMS
Score410.24
Rank#5  Overall
#1  Document stores
Score644.36
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score4.06
Rank#73  Overall
#5  Time Series DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.mongodb.comwww.postgresql.orgwww.timescale.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docswww.mongodb.com/­docs/­manualwww.postgresql.org/­docsdocs.timescale.com
DeveloperGoogleMongoDB, IncPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerTimescale
Initial release201720091989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2017
Current release7.0.5, January 202416.4, August 20242.15.0, May 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 infoBSDOpen Source infoApache 2.0
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesno infoMongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)nono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
  • 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.
  • 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.
PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.
Implementation languageC++CC
Server operating systemshostedLinux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
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.yesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infostring, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatialyesnumerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex 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 infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.yes
Secondary indexesyesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interfaceyes infostandard with numerous extensionsyes infofull PostgreSQL SQL syntax
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
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
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
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoJavaScriptuser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell
Triggersnoyes infoin MongoDB Atlas onlyyesyes
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.partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashyes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes
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
Source-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsSource-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas info
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowyesnono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency infocan be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency infodefault behaviour
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
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 possibleyesyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationMulti-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolationACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infooptional, enabled by defaultyesyes
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 3.2nono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Access rights for users and rolesfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerMongoDBPostgreSQLTimescaleDB
Specific characteristicsMongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
» more
Competitive advantagesBuilt around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
» more
Typical application scenariosAI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
» more
Key customersADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
» more
Market metricsHundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsMongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
» more

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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerMongoDBPostgreSQLTimescaleDB
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Conferences, events and webinars

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Recent citations in the news

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23 July 2024, InfoWorld

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