DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. PieCloudDB vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. PieCloudDB vs. Weaviate

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

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.

A cloud-native analytic database platform with new technologoy for elastic MPP

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Vector DBMS

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

Score	2.56
Rank	#97	Overall
	#50	Relational DBMS

Score	0.14
Rank	#328	Overall
	#145	Relational DBMS

Score	1.86
Rank	#123	Overall
	#11	Vector DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.openpie.com

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Google

OpenPie

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2017

2019

Current release

2.1, January 2023

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

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

Server operating systems

hosted

Data scheme

yes

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

yes

GraphQL is used as query language

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

CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Java
PL/SQL
Python
R

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

Triggers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

yes

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

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.

yes

User concepts

Access control

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

User Roles and pluggable authentication with full SQL Standard

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
» more

Competitive advantages

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
» more

Typical application scenarios

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
» more

Key customers

All companies that have data.
» more

Market metrics

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

Weaviate, an ANN Database with CRUD support
2 February 2021, Etienne Dilocker, SeMI Technologies (sponsor)

show all

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

Google Cloud beefs up database services for generative AI workloads
2 October 2024, SiliconANGLE

provided by Google News

Weaviate unveils three AI vector database agents
6 March 2025, Blocks and Files

Video: How Weaviate Is Revolutionizing Search With AI
5 March 2025, Channel Insider

Weaviate adds agents to its tech stack to ease gen AI app development
11 March 2025, InfoWorld

Vector database startup Weaviate debuts ‘AI workbench’ and flexible storage tiers
30 July 2024, SiliconANGLE

Weaviate Achieves Amazon Web Services GenAI Competency Status
8 July 2024, GlobeNewswire

provided by Google News

Share this page