Google Cloud Spanner vs TiDB Cloud
Google Cloud Spanner
cloud.google.com
TiDB Cloud
pingcap.comSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Spanner | TiDB Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 13 |
| Spec score · Distributed SQL Databases | 8.3 (#10) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.4 (#32) | 9.2 (#5) |
| Spec score · Databases And Backend | 8.1 (#16) | 8.6 (#7) |
| Spec score · Transaction Data Store Software | 8.1 (#18) | 8.6 (#9) |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Integrations | Google documents integrations with Cloud Run, Dataflow, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, GKE, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Looker. | Official integrations include Kubernetes via TiDB Operator, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Kafka, Flink, Confluent, Airbyte, Amazon AppFlow and dbt. |
| Scaling | Spanner provides horizontal read and write scalability, automatic database sharding, and geo-partitioning. | Starter offers on-demand compute that scales to zero when idle. |
| Security | Spanner provides encryption in transit, identity and access controls, and security controls under a shared responsibility model. | TiDB Cloud supports email and password login, standard SSO, organization SSO, private endpoints, public endpoints, and console audit logging across all four listed plans. |
| Support | Google lists support packages, Stack Overflow, online help communities, and bug or feature requests as support options for Spanner instances. | Support is provided through the Help Center, email, chat and video conferencing; Basic users use community Slack or Discord for technical questions. |
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
TiDB Cloud
- TiDB Cloud StarterFree
- TiDB Cloud EssentialPrice not published
- TiDB Cloud Premium$1,800 a month
- TiDB Cloud Dedicated$0.22 a month
- StarterFree
- TiDB Cloud StarterFree
- Essential$400 a month
- Dedicated$1,376 a month
- Premium$1,800 a month
- TiDB Cloud Premium Preview$1,800 a month
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.
TiDB Cloud
TiDB Cloud is a managed cloud database service built around an open-source distributed SQL database with MySQL compatibility. It supports transactional and analytical workloads, horizontal scaling, multi-region deployment, and geo-partitioning across Starter, Essential, Premium, and Dedicated plans. Starter includes up to 25 GiB of row storage, 25 GiB of column storage, and 250 million Request Units per month per organization, for up to the first five instances. Its on-demand compute scales to zero when idle, and vector storage and search are in public preview. CSV, Parquet, and SQL file imports are supported across the listed plans. Email and password login, SSO options, private and public endpoints, and console audit logging are listed across all four plans. Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog integrations are listed for Essential, Premium, and Dedicated in public preview. All users can submit billing and account support tickets; guaranteed technical-ticket response times require paid support plans. The service is available through web and API platforms. Starter is free; the Dedicated plan is listed as starting at $0.22 a month and from $1376 / month.