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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonMySQL  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.Widely used open source RDBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infoKey/Value like access via memcached APIGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.89
Rank#105  Overall
#53  Relational DBMS
Score1087.72
Rank#2  Overall
#2  Relational DBMS
Score44.47
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.mysql.comneo4j.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsdev.mysql.com/­docneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleOracle infosince 2010, originally MySQL AB, then SunNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release201719952007
Current release8.3.0, January 20245.18.1, March 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC and C++Java, Scala
Server operating systemshostedFreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
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 indexesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yes infowith proprietary extensionsno
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
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native 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
Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoproprietary syntaxyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnoyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardinghorizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabricyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Multi-source replication
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 Dataflownono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyCausal 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 integrityyes infonot for MyISAM storage engineyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACID infonot for MyISAM storage engineACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyes infotable locks or row locks depending on storage engineyes
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.noyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Users with fine-grained authorization concept infono user groups or rolesUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerMySQLNeo4j
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsNeo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsGPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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3rd partiesNavicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for MySQL and many other database management systems.
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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources
Google Cloud SpannerMySQLNeo4j
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Recent citations in the news

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14 October 2023, InfoQ.com

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

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Google Spanner: When Do You Need to Move to It?
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