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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSurrealDB  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 offeringsA fully ACID transactional, developer-friendly, multi-model DBMS
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.80
Rank#91  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Score43.69
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score0.97
Rank#187  Overall
#31  Document stores
#17  Graph DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerneo4j.comsurrealdb.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docssurrealdb.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleNeo4j, Inc.SurrealDB Ltd
Initial release201720072022
Current release5.23, August 2024v1.5.0, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source
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.
Implementation languageJava, ScalaRust
Server operating systemshostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
macOS
Windows
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 Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011noSQL-like query language
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
GraphQL
RESTful HTTP API
WebSocket
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Deno
Go
JavaScript (Node.js)
Rust
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 Dataflownono
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 isolationACIDACID
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)yes, based on authentication and database rules
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jSurrealDB
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
News

Neo4j Joins Linux Foundation for AI and Data
15 January 2025

Neo4j in 2024: Delivering on Our Vision of Cloud-First Graph Technology
15 January 2025

Neo4j Positioned as a Visionary in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Database Management Systems
23 December 2024

This Week in Neo4j: FIKA AI, Hackathon, Knowledge Graph, Snowflake and more
21 December 2024

This Week in Neo4j: NODES 2024, Data Import, GenAI, Spring Data and more
7 December 2024

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jSurrealDB
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22 December 2015, Emil Eifrem (guest author)

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Recent citations in the news

Google Cloud adds graph processing to Spanner, SQL support to Bigtable
1 August 2024, InfoWorld

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

Google Cloud adds graph and vector search features to Spanner database
2 August 2024, Techzine Europe

Google Cloud expands its database portfolio with new AI capabilities
1 August 2024, TechCrunch

Google Cloud announces new data innovations to support AI applications
1 August 2024, SiliconANGLE News

provided by Google News

Neo4j lowers barriers to graph technology with gen AI copilot, 15x read capacity
4 September 2024, VentureBeat

Data Science Firm Neo4j Reportedly Prepping IPO
19 November 2024, PYMNTS.com

Neo4j Surpasses $200M in Revenue, Accelerates Leadership in GenAI-Driven Graph Technology
19 November 2024, PR Newswire

Database startup Neo4j embraces AI to supercharge growth
19 November 2024, TechCrunch

Unicorn Neo4j Follows Klarna Path and Readies for US Listing
19 November 2024, Bloomberg

provided by Google News

SurrealDB Delivers Future-Ready Database Technology for Developers and Enterprises with Release of SurrealDB 2.0
17 September 2024, Business Wire

SurrealDB's Surreal Cloud debuts on AWS S3 for scalable multimodel database as a service
4 December 2024, SiliconANGLE News

SurrealDB Raises $20 Million to Disrupt Database Tech; Introduces New Cloud Beta Access
18 June 2024, PR Newswire

SurrealDB is helping developers consolidate their databases
18 June 2024, TechCrunch

SurrealDB Launches Surreal Cloud, a Fully Managed Database Service That Tackles the Complexity Issues Faced by Developer Teams
7 December 2024, insideBIGDATA

provided by Google News



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