DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak TS vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak TS vs. TimescaleDB

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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.

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

Riak TS is a distributed NoSQL database optimized for time series data and based on Riak KV

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS

with pgvector extension

Relational DBMS

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

Score	2.89
Rank	#103	Overall
	#52	Relational DBMS

Score	645.54
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	0.20
Rank	#319	Overall
	#27	Time Series DBMS

Score	4.64
Rank	#71	Overall
	#4	Time Series DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

www.postgresql.org

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

www.postgresql.org/docs

www.tiot.jp/riak-docs/riak/ts/latest

docs.timescale.com

Developer

Google

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Open Source, formerly Basho Technologies

Timescale

Initial release

2017

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2015

2017

Current release

16.3, May 2024

3.0.0, September 2022

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

BSD

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

Erlang

Server operating systems

hosted

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux
OS X

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

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

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

restricted

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

yes

standard with numerous extensions

yes, limited

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

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

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

unofficial client library
C#
C++

unofficial client library
Clojure

unofficial client library
Dart

unofficial client library
Erlang
Go

unofficial client library
Groovy

unofficial client library
Haskell

unofficial client library
Java
JavaScript

unofficial client library
Lisp

unofficial client library
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

unofficial client library
Smalltalk

unofficial client library

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Erlang

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

yes

pre-commit hooks and post-commit hooks

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

Sharding

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

using Google Cloud Dataflow

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

yes

links between datasets can be stored

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)

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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Related products and services

3rd parties

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
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Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
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Timescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
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SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
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Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
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Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
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Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
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pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
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Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
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Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
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More resources

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