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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j vs. Vertica

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonVertica infoOpenText™ Vertica™  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 offeringsCloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSRelational DBMS infoColumn oriented
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS
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
Score9.78
Rank#42  Overall
#26  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerneo4j.comwww.vertica.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docsvertica.com/­documentation
DeveloperGoogleNeo4j, Inc.OpenText infopreviously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard
Initial release201720072005
Current release5.23, August 202412.0.3, January 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availablecommercial infoLimited community edition free
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnono infoon-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJava, ScalaC++
Server operating systemshostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalYes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.
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.nono
Secondary indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache LuceneNo Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011noFull 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.
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
ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL infocharacter-based, interactive, front-end utility
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsyes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences
Triggersnoyes infovia event handleryes, called Custom Alerts
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j Fabrichorizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning
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 onlyMulti-source replication infoOne, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownono infoBi-directional Spark integration
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
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
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.nono
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)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash
More information provided by the system vendor
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jVertica infoOpenText™ Vertica™
News

Run Cypher From Java
13 May 2025

Integrating Neo4j With LangChain4j for GraphRAG Vector Stores and Retrievers
12 May 2025

This Week in Neo4j: NODES, Knowledge Graph, Graph Analytics, MCP and more
10 May 2025

Aura Graph Analytics: A Technical Deep Dive
7 May 2025

Introducing Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics: Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy Graph Analytics for Any Data Source
7 May 2025

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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerNeo4jVertica infoOpenText™ Vertica™
DB-Engines blog posts

Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones
12 June 2019, Amy Hodler & Mark Needham, Neo4j (guest author)

MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking
2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs
22 December 2015, Emil Eifrem (guest author)

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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

Neo4j Brings Graph Analytics to Any Data Platform
14 May 2025, CDOTrends

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

provided by Google News

Speeding Up Vertica Queries
12 May 2025, Taboola.com

Introducing the Future of Data Analysis: A Revolutionary Tool for Vertica Users
25 October 2024, OpenText Blogs

New browser-based query editor for OpenText Core Analytics Database accelerates and simplifies querying your data
25 November 2024, OpenText Blogs

Leveraging Vertica Performance by Reducing CPU System Calls
23 January 2025, Taboola.com

Querying a Vertica data source in Amazon Athena using the Athena Federated Query SDK
11 February 2021, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

provided by Google News



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