DBMS > Google Cloud Spanner vs. mSQL vs. PostgreSQL vs. SpaceTime

System Properties Comparison Google Cloud Spanner vs. mSQL vs. PostgreSQL vs. SpaceTime

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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.

mSQL (Mini SQL) is a simple and lightweight RDBMS

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

SpaceTime is a spatio-temporal DBMS with a focus on performance.

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.

Spatial 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	2.84
Rank	#100	Overall
	#51	Relational DBMS

Score	1.27
Rank	#169	Overall
	#76	Relational DBMS

Score	636.25
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Score	0.03
Rank	#392	Overall
	#8	Spatial DBMS

Website

cloud.google.com/spanner

hughestech.com.au/products/msql

www.postgresql.org

www.mireo.com/spacetime

Technical documentation

cloud.google.com/spanner/docs

www.postgresql.org/docs

Developer

Google

Hughes Technologies

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Mireo

Initial release

2017

1994

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

2020

Current release

4.4, October 2021

16.3, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free licenses can be provided

Open Source

BSD

commercial

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows

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

Linux

Data scheme

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

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

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

Query statements complying to ANSI 2011

A subset of ANSI SQL is implemented

no subqueries, aggregate functions, views, foreign keys, triggers

yes

standard with numerous extensions

A subset of ANSI SQL is implemented

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

JDBC
ODBC

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

RESTful HTTP API

Supported programming languages

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

C
C++
Delphi
Java
Perl
PHP
Tcl

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

C#
C++
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

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

Fixed-grid hypercubes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.

none

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

Real-time block device replication (DRBD)

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

none

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

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

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

yes

More information provided by the system vendor

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Related products and services

3rd parties

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Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
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pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
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SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
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Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
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Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

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