Google Cloud Spanner vs OceanBase Database
Google Cloud Spanner
cloud.google.comOceanBase Database
en.oceanbase.comSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Spanner | OceanBase Database |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $2.38/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 5 |
| Spec score · Distributed SQL Databases | 8.3 (#10) | 9.1 (#3) |
| Availability | Google says Spanner delivers up to 99.999% availability and offers single-region, dual-region, and multi-region configurations. | The documentation says OceanBase supports high availability and disaster recovery at node, data center, and region levels. |
| Compliance | Google lists ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA among Spanner’s certifications and compliance credentials. | The Trust Center says OceanBase completed the EU Cloud Code of Conduct adherence process and lists ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 27018, ISO 9001, and ISO 20000 certifications. |
| Deployment | Spanner Omni is a downloadable version that can run on-premises, across clouds, or on a laptop. | OceanBase Community Edition is open source, OceanBase Enterprise is self-hosted, and OceanBase Cloud is fully managed across cloud providers. |
| Integrations | Google documents integrations with Cloud Run, Dataflow, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, GKE, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Looker. | Documented integrations include Kafka, Debezium, Flink, Canal, dbt, DataWorks, AWS Glue, Informatica, NiFi, SeaTunnel and Maxwell. |
| Security | Spanner provides encryption in transit, identity and access controls, and security controls under a shared responsibility model. | The Trust Center lists role and permission management, network whitelists, encrypted communication, transparent data encryption, and SQL auditing. |
| Support | Google lists support packages, Stack Overflow, online help communities, and bug or feature requests as support options for Spanner instances. | The Trust Center describes an L1–L2–L3 after-sales service system providing 24/7 service. |
Plans
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
OceanBase Database
- Community EditionFree
- OceanBase Community EditionFree
- OceanBase Cloud Alibaba Cloud pay-as-you-go example$2.38 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- OceanBase EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
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.
OceanBase Database
OceanBase Database is a distributed database for transactional, analytical, and AI workloads in one system. Built-in compatibility with Oracle and MySQL is intended to simplify migration. Deployment choices include the open-source Community Edition, self-hosted Enterprise, and fully managed OceanBase Cloud across cloud providers. Documentation describes high availability and disaster recovery at node, data-center, and region levels. Linux installation packages are listed for Alibaba Cloud Linux, CentOS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, and Anolis OS. Docker deployment can be used on Windows and macOS, though the documentation cautions that this method has not been validated at scale. A standalone instance can be used for learning; production environments require at least three servers. Community Edition is free and includes full kernel capabilities. Enterprise pricing is available on request. Security features include role and permission management, network whitelists, encrypted communication, transparent data encryption, and SQL auditing, but Community Edition does not support security audit.