CockroachDB Cloud vs Google Cloud Spanner
CockroachDB Cloud
cockroachlabs.com
Google Cloud Spanner
cloud.google.comSide by side
| Figure | CockroachDB Cloud | Google Cloud Spanner |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.06/mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 7 |
| Spec score · Distributed SQL Databases | 8.6 (#6) | 8.3 (#10) |
| Spec score · Databases And Backend | 8.4 (#9) | 8.1 (#16) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.5 (#25) | 8.4 (#32) |
| Spec score · Transaction Data Store Software | 8.4 (#10) | 8.1 (#18) |
| Compliance | CockroachDB Cloud Advanced is described as HIPAA-ready and certified against PCI-DSS SAQ-A and SAQ-D requirements; Cockroach Labs also reports ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 certifications and annual SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 certification. | Google lists ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA among Spanner’s certifications and compliance credentials. |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Integrations | The maker describes managed data pipelines, native drivers, and connections to third-party observability and logging tools; its integration categories include data streaming, monitoring, AI, developer tools, and infrastructure. | Google documents integrations with Cloud Run, Dataflow, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, GKE, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Looker. |
| Security | CockroachDB Cloud encrypts node-to-node and client-server traffic with TLS, uses cloud-provider disk encryption at rest, and supports column-level encryption. | Spanner provides encryption in transit, identity and access controls, and security controls under a shared responsibility model. |
| Support | The current pricing page lists a 1-hour P1 support response for Standard and a 30-minute P1 response for Mission Critical. | Google lists support packages, Stack Overflow, online help communities, and bug or feature requests as support options for Spanner instances. |
Plans
CockroachDB Cloud
- Standard$0.06 a month
- Mission Critical$0.16 a month
- BasicFree
- Cockroach Continuum Standard$0.09 a month
- Cockroach Continuum Mission Critical$0.16 a month
- Standard$0.18 a month
- Advanced$0.60 a month
Google Cloud Spanner
- StandardPrice not published
- EnterprisePrice not published
- Enterprise PlusPrice not published
- Spanner free trial instanceFree
- Standard edition compute$0.03 a month
- Enterprise edition compute$0.04 a month
- Enterprise Plus edition compute$0.06 a month
In their own words
CockroachDB Cloud
CockroachDB Cloud is a managed distributed SQL platform for development, testing, and production workloads. It provisions clusters, scales compute and storage, performs rolling upgrades, and manages backups. The database supports ACID transactions and can scale reads and writes horizontally without manual sharding. Deployments can span AWS, Azure, and GCP, including multiple providers and regions. Cockroach Labs' Terraform provider and Cloud APIs support operation automation. Security features include TLS for traffic between clients and servers and between nodes, cloud-provider disk encryption at rest, and column-level encryption. The listed plans include Basic at free and Standard at $0.06 a month; usage is metered by the minute, billed monthly, and rates vary by region. New Cloud organizations receive a 30-day trial with $400 in credits. The trial ends after 30 days or when the credits run out, and clusters are then paused. Pricing terms also distinguish deployments created before and from September 15, 2026, so the applicable plan depends on deployment timing.
Google Cloud Spanner
Google Cloud Spanner is a paid database service combining relational, graph, key-value, and search capabilities. It provides Strong-ACID transactions ordered with TrueTime, horizontal read and write scaling, automatic sharding, and geo-partitioning. Configurations include single-region, dual-region, and multi-region deployments, with Google describing availability up to 99.999%. Spanner Graph, vector search, and built-in full-text search are included. A columnar engine supports ad hoc analytics on live data, and BigQuery integration enables federated queries. Spanner Omni is downloadable for on-premises, cross-cloud, or laptop deployment. Client libraries cover C++, C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby. Integrations include Cloud Run, Dataflow, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, GKE, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Looker. Security includes encryption in transit and identity and access controls. PostgreSQL compatibility, horizontal scaling, multi-region deployment, geo-partitioning, and HTAP workloads are listed.