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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j

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Our visitors often compare Google Cloud Spanner and Neo4j with PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  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.Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score3.62
Rank#100  Overall
#49  Relational DBMS
Score50.39
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerneo4j.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release20172007
Current release5.12, September 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageJava, Scala
Server operating systemshostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes
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 indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011no
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
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
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnoyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate 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 infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.no
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4j
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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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4j
DB-Engines blog posts

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2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

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22 December 2015, Emil Eifrem (guest author)

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Recent citations in the news

Google’s Cloud Spanner Data Boost is now generally available
29 August 2023, TechCrunch

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29 August 2023, CRN

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29 August 2023, TechCrunch

Duet AI Goes Everywhere in Google's Cloud
29 August 2023, Datanami

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29 July 2023, The New Stack

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20 June 2023, SiliconANGLE News

provided by Google News

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