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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j vs. Tarantool

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonTarantool  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 offeringsIn-memory computing platform with a flexible data schema for efficiently building high-performance applications
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSDocument store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMS infowith Tarantool/GIS extension
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
Score1.42
Rank#148  Overall
#26  Document stores
#24  Key-value stores
#66  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerneo4j.comwww.tarantool.io
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docswww.tarantool.io/­en/­doc
DeveloperGoogleNeo4j, Inc.VK
Initial release201720072008
Current release5.23, August 20242.10.0, May 2022
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoBSD-2, source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Tarantool Enterprise
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, ScalaC and C++
Server operating systemshostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
BSD
Linux
macOS
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalFlexible data schema: relational definition for tables with ability to store json-like documents in columns
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesstring, double, decimal, uuid, integer, blob, boolean, datetime
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 indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011noFull-featured ANSI SQL support
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
Open binary protocol
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C
C#
C++
Erlang
Go
Java
JavaScript
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Rust
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and FunctionsLua, C and SQL stored procedures
Triggersnoyes infovia event handleryes, before/after data modification events, on replication events, client session events
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j FabricSharding, partitioned with virtual buckets by user defined affinity key. Live resharding for scale up and scale down without maintenance downtime.
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 onlyAsynchronous replication with multi-master option
Configurable replication topology (full-mesh, chain, star)
Synchronous quorum replication (with Raft)
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
Casual consistency across sharding partitions
Eventual consistency within replicaset partition infowhen using asyncronous replication
Immediate Consistency within single instance
Sequential consistency including linearizable read within replicaset partition infowhen using Raft
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDACID, with serializable isolation and linearizable read (within partition); Configurable MVCC (within partition); No cross-shard distributed transactions
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes, cooperative multitasking
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes, write ahead logging
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes, full featured in-memory storage engine with persistence
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)Access Control Lists
Mutual TLS authentication for Tarantol Enterprise
Password based authentication
Role-based access control (RBAC) and LDAP for Tarantol Enterprise
Users and Roles
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jTarantool
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More resources
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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

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7 May 2025, SD Times

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Tarantool Announces New Enterprise Version With Enhanced Scaling and Monitoring Capabilities
18 May 2018, Newswire.com

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