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

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

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonTimescaleDB  Xexclude from comparisonTimesTen  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 SQLA time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQLIn-Memory RDBMS compatible to Oracle
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.Time Series DBMSRelational 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
Score3.37
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Score634.91
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score5.33
Rank#72  Overall
#4  Time Series DBMS
Score1.59
Rank#157  Overall
#72  Relational DBMS
Websitecloud.google.com/­spannerwww.postgresql.orgwww.timescale.comwww.oracle.com/­database/­technologies/­related/­timesten.html
Technical documentationcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docswww.postgresql.org/­docsdocs.timescale.comdocs.oracle.com/­database/­timesten-18.1
DeveloperGooglePostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerTimescaleOracle, TimesTen Performance Software, HP infooriginally founded in HP Labs it was acquired by Oracle in 2005
Initial release20171989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL20171998
Current release16.2, February 20242.13.0, November 202311 Release 2 (11.2.2.8.0)
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoBSDOpen Source infoApache 2.0commercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
Implementation languageCC
Server operating systemshostedFreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris SPARC/x86
Windows
Data schemeyesyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesnumerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data typesyes
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.yesno
Secondary indexesyesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yes infostandard with numerous extensionsyes infofull PostgreSQL SQL syntaxyes
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
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)
Supported programming languagesGo
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
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
C
C++
Java
PL/SQL
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 shellPL/SQL
Triggersnoyesyesno
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) attributesnone
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 infoMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
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 ConsistencyImmediate Consistency or Eventual Consistency depending on configuration
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyesyesyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID infoStrict serializable isolationACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infoby means of logfiles and checkpoints
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nononoyes
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-standardfine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources
Google Cloud SpannerPostgreSQLTimescaleDBTimesTen
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