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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. Pinecone vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. Pinecone vs. PostgreSQL vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonPinecone  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonTimescaleDB  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.A managed, cloud-native vector databaseWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLA time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL
Primary database modelRelational DBMSVector DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Time Series DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
Relational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.89
Rank#103  Overall
#52  Relational DBMS
Score3.16
Rank#95  Overall
#2  Vector DBMS
Score645.54
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score4.64
Rank#71  Overall
#4  Time Series DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.pinecone.iowww.postgresql.orgwww.timescale.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsdocs.pinecone.io/­docs/­overviewwww.postgresql.org/­docsdocs.timescale.com
DeveloperGooglePinecone Systems, IncPostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerTimescale
Initial release201720191989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2017
Current release16.3, May 20242.15.0, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialcommercialOpen Source infoBSDOpen Source infoApache 2.0
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
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Implementation languageCC
Server operating systemshostedhostedFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesString, Number, Booleanyesnumerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types
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.nonoyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.yes
Secondary indexesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011noyes infostandard with numerous extensionsyes infofull PostgreSQL SQL syntax
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
RESTful HTTP APIADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Python.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell
Triggersnoyesyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashyes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Source-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsSource-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas info
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyesyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nononono
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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Recent citations in the news

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14 October 2023, InfoQ.com

Google makes its Cloud Spanner database service faster and more cost-efficient
11 October 2023, SiliconANGLE News

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Power IoT and time-series workloads with TimescaleDB for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
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