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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. mSQL vs. Neo4j vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. mSQL vs. Neo4j vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonmSQL infoMini SQL  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  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.mSQL (Mini SQL) is a simple and lightweight RDBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMSSearch engine
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.89
Rank#105  Overall
#53  Relational DBMS
Score1.67
Rank#151  Overall
#70  Relational DBMS
Score44.47
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score6.03
Rank#60  Overall
#6  Search engines
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerhughestech.com.au/­products/­msqlneo4j.comsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleHughes TechnologiesNeo4j, Inc.Sphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release2017199420072001
Current release4.4, October 20215.19, April 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercial infofree licenses can be providedOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnonono
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 languageCJava, ScalaC++
Server operating systemshostedAIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesno
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.nono
Secondary indexesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011A subset of ANSI SQL is implemented infono subqueries, aggregate functions, views, foreign keys, triggersnoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
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
JDBC
ODBC
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C
C++
Delphi
Java
Perl
PHP
Tcl
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnonoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersnonoyes infovia event handlerno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingnoneyes using Neo4j FabricSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.noneCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencynoneCausal 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 integritynoyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationnoACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesnoyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)noUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)no
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannermSQL infoMini SQLNeo4jSphinx
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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