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DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. PostgreSQL vs. Snowflake

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. PostgreSQL vs. Snowflake

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonSnowflake  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.Widely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLCloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured data
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Relational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score4.27
Rank#93  Overall
#47  Relational DBMS
Score612.82
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score114.13
Rank#11  Overall
#8  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.postgresql.orgwww.snowflake.com
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docswww.postgresql.org/­docsdocs.snowflake.net/­manuals/­index.html
DeveloperGooglePostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerSnowflake Computing Inc.
Initial release20171989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2014
Current release15.3, May 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoBSDcommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnoyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageC
Server operating systemshostedFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
hosted
Data schemeyesyesyes infosupport of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)
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.noyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.yes
Secondary indexesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yes infostandard with numerous extensionsyes
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
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
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
Triggersnoyesno infosimilar concept for controling cloud resources
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashyes
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 extensionsyes
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflownono
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 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.nonono
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-standardUsers with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerPostgreSQLSnowflake
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