Google Cloud Bigtable vs SWC-DB
Google Cloud Bigtable
cloud.google.comSWC-DB
swcdb.orgSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Bigtable | SWC-DB |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.03/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 1 |
| Spec score · Wide-Column Databases | 7.8 (#6) | 7.5 (#8) |
| Data model | It is a key-value and wide-column store for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. | The documentation identifies SWC-DB as a key-value, wide-column, NoSQL and time-series database. |
| Product | Bigtable is a fully managed, low-latency NoSQL database service for machine learning, operational analytics, and user-facing applications. | SWC-DB describes itself as a high-performance, scalable Super Wide Column Database. |
| Security | Security controls include customer-managed encryption keys with Cloud External Key Manager support, IAM, VPC Service Controls, Access Transparency, Access Approval, audit logging, and table-, column-, or row-level access control. | The documentation says communications can use SSL, while transaction security also depends on the configured filesystem and clients supporting a secure layer. |
| SQL | Bigtable supports SQL queries, including a SQL query API with more than 200 functions and support for aggregations, windowing, geospatial and JSON processing, and vector search. | SWC-DB supports SQL, but the maker notes that it has no joins. |
Plans
Google Cloud Bigtable
- Enterprise$0.65 a month
- Enterprise Plus$0.85 a month
- Data BoostFree
- HDD storage$0.03 a month
- Standard backup storage$0.03 a month
- Hot backup storage$0.12 a month
- SSD storage$0.17 a month
- In-memory tier$0.20 a month
- Enterprise compute capacity$0.65 a month
- Enterprise Plus compute capacity$0.85 a month
In their own words
Google Cloud Bigtable
Google Cloud Bigtable is a managed, low-latency NoSQL database for machine learning, operational analytics, and user-facing applications. It stores structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data in key-value and wide-column formats. SQL querying includes an API with more than 200 functions and support for aggregations, windowing, geospatial and JSON processing, and vector search. Compute scales horizontally, and instances can span up to eight regions with automatic replication between clusters. Google says multi-region instances offer 99.999% availability and protection against a regional failure. Integrations listed include Apache Spark, Hadoop, GKE, Dataflow, Dataproc, Vertex AI Vector Search, BigQuery, and LangChain. Bigtable provides Apache HBase and Cassandra APIs, plus migration tools for HBase, Cassandra, DynamoDB, and Aerospike. Security controls include IAM, customer-managed encryption keys, audit logging, and table-, column-, or row-level access control. Deployment is cloud-based. Google describes its capacity-based low-latency compute as more favorable for larger workloads than small applications. A 10-day trial is available subject to eligibility requirements.
SWC-DB
SWC-DB is a self-hosted Super Wide Column Database that the maker describes as a key-value, wide-column NoSQL and time-series database. It supports SQL, but SQL has no joins, and the system is designed for very large data volumes. Its data model uses cell keys made from lists of fractions with timestamps, with numerous columns rather than tables or namespaces. Data can have automatic or user-defined versions, ordered ascending or descending, with a configurable maximum retained. The maker describes ACID concepts for a single data entry; writes across multiple entries are not atomic as a group. Communications can use SSL, but transaction security also depends on the configured filesystem and clients supporting a secure layer. User-concept access controls are unsupported. A cluster utility can deploy, start and stop distributed clusters. Downloads include tar.xz and Debian packages, with Arch Linux AUR packages also described. SWC-DB is free under GPLv3; commercial-purpose licensing inquiries are invited for uses limited by that license.