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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j vs. Sqrrl

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSqrrl  Xexclude from comparison
Sqrrl has been acquired by Amazon and became a part of Amazon Web Services. It has been removed from the DB-Engines ranking.
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 offeringsAdaptable, secure NoSQL built on Apache Accumulo
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.56
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerneo4j.comsqrrl.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleNeo4j, Inc.Amazon infooriginally Sqrrl Data, Inc.
Initial release201720072012
Current release5.23, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availablecommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJava, ScalaJava
Server operating systemshostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalschema-free
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.no
Secondary indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011nono
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
Accumulo Shell
Java API
JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Actionscript
C infousing GLib
C#
C++
Cocoa
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersnoyes infovia event handlerno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j FabricSharding infomaking use of Hadoop
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 onlyselectable replication factor infomaking use of Hadoop
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownoyes
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
Immediate Consistency infoDocument store kept consistent with combination of global timestamping, row-level transactions, and server-side consistency resolution.
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDAtomic updates per row, document, or graph entity
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
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.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)Cell-level Security, Data-Centric Security, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jSqrrl
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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jSqrrl
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Recent citations in the news

Google Cloud Introduces HDD Tier for Spanner Database, Cutting Cold Storage Costs by 80%
22 March 2025, infoq.com

New features make Google's Spanner a database for AI
1 August 2024, TechTarget

Google Cloud Spanner gets dual-region configuration option
23 July 2024, InfoWorld

Google Cloud adds graph and vector search features to Spanner database
2 August 2024, techzine.eu

Google Releases Spanner Graph into General Availability
19 February 2025, infoq.com

provided by Google News

NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
7 May 2025, theregister.com

Neo4j goes serverless, bringing graph analytics to any data source
7 May 2025, SiliconANGLE

Latest Neo4j release aims to simplify graph technology
7 May 2025, TechTarget

Neo4j Launches Industry's First Graph Analytics Offering For Any Data Platform
7 May 2025, PR Newswire

Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop, Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics, and more software development news
7 May 2025, SD Times

provided by Google News

Amazon's cloud business acquires Sqrrl, a security start-up with NSA roots
23 January 2018, CNBC

Splunk details Sqrrl 'screw-ups' that hampered threat hunting
6 May 2024, TechTarget

Will Amazon Buy Cybersecurity Firm Sqrrl?
18 December 2017, PYMNTS.com

Amazon acquires cybersecurity startup Sqrrl
8 June 2023, CISO Mag

Deloitte launches Threat Hunting-As-A-Service powered by Sqrrl
30 November 2017, Help Net Security

provided by Google News



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