DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. OrientDB vs. PostGIS

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. OrientDB vs. PostGIS

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A 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.

Multi-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)

Spatial extension of PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Spatial DBMS

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	2.56
Rank	#97	Overall
	#50	Relational DBMS

Score	2.71
Rank	#91	Overall
	#16	Document stores
	#6	Graph DBMS
	#14	Key-value stores

Score	18.94
Rank	#30	Overall
	#1	Spatial DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

orientdb.org

postgis.net

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

www.orientdb.com/docs/last/index.html

postgis.net/documentation

Developer

Google

OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAP

Initial release

2017

2010

2005

Current release

3.2.29, March 2024

3.4.2, February 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

GPL v2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

Java

Server operating systems

hosted

All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Schema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

SQL-like query language, no joins

yes

APIs and other access methods

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC

At present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API

Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C#
C++
Clojure
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Java, Javascript

user defined functions

Triggers

Hooks

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

yes

based on PostgreSQL

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

Multi-source replication

yes

based on PostgreSQL

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

could be achieved with distributed queries

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

by using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity

yes

relationship in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Strict serializable isolation

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurable

yes

based on PostgreSQL

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More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

Graph DBMS increased their popularity by 500% within the last 2 years
3 March 2015, Paul Andlinger

Graph DBMSs are gaining in popularity faster than any other database category
21 January 2014, Matthias Gelbmann

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Spatial database management systems
6 April 2021, Matthias Gelbmann

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

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

Google’s Plan to Make GCP ‘The Best Cloud for Machine Learning’
5 May 2025, SDx Central

provided by Google News

Introducing Nexus Repository Community Edition: Enhanced features for growing teams
4 February 2025, Sonatype

Figure 4. OrientDB as multi-model database (courtesy of Orient...
15 March 2018, ResearchGate

OrientDB: A Flexible and Scalable Multi-Model NoSQL DBMS
21 January 2022, Open Source For You

HNS IoT Botnet Evolves, Goes Cross-Platform
2 December 2023, Dark Reading

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1 January 2025, solutionsreview.com

provided by Google News

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