DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. MongoDB vs. Snowflake vs. Splice Machine vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. MongoDB vs. Snowflake vs. Splice Machine vs. Vertica

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.

One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

Cloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data

Open-Source SQL RDBMS for Operational and Analytical use cases with native Machine Learning, powered by Hadoop and Spark

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS
Search engine

integrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS

Time Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS

currently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	2.84
Rank	#100	Overall
	#51	Relational DBMS

Score	421.08
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	130.36
Rank	#8	Overall
	#5	Relational DBMS

Score	0.54
Rank	#252	Overall
	#115	Relational DBMS

Score	10.06
Rank	#42	Overall
	#26	Relational DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

www.mongodb.com/docs/manual

docs.snowflake.net/manuals/index.html

splicemachine.com/how-it-works

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Google

MongoDB, Inc

Snowflake Computing Inc.

Splice Machine

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2017

2009

2014

2005

Current release

6.0.7, June 2023

3.1, March 2021

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.

commercial

Open Source

AGPL 3.0, commercial license available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

MongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)

yes

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database 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.

Implementation language

C++

Java

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

hosted

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Although 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.

yes

support of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)

yes

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatial

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

Secondary indexes

yes

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interface

yes

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

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

GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

JDBC
Native Spark Datasource
ODBC

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Actionscript

unofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure

unofficial driver
ColdFusion

unofficial driver
D

unofficial driver
Dart

unofficial driver
Delphi

unofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy

unofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp

unofficial driver
Lua

unofficial driver
MatLab

unofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell

unofficial driver
Prolog

unofficial driver
Python
R

unofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk

unofficial driver
Swift

JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C#
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
R
Scala

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

user defined functions

yes

Java

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

similar concept for controling cloud resources

yes

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Partitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.

yes

Shared Nothhing Auto-Sharding, Columnar Partitioning

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication

yes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

yes

Yes, via Full Spark Integration

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

can be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency

default behaviour

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users and roles

Users with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

Access rights for users, groups and roles according to SQL-standard

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

AI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

ADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

Hundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
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Licensing and pricing models

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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