CockroachDB vs Google Cloud Spanner
On the evidence we track, CockroachDB leads this comparison with a composite score of 65/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.
Capabilities
Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for relational databases. “-” means undocumented, not absent.
What each one is
The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.
CockroachDB
LeaderA cloud-native SQL database that scales automatically across machines without manual sharding, supporting ACID transactions and multi-region deployments. It survives node, zone, and regional failures with minimal disruption and is compatible with PostgreSQL applications.
Google Cloud Spanner
Google Cloud Spanner is a managed database service that unifies multiple data models (relational, key-value, graph, vector search) on one platform. It provides up to 99.999% uptime with globally consistent transactions through a distributed timestamp system.
Pricing
List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.
CockroachDB
LeaderFrom $0.057/vCPU-hr. Free 30-day trial with $400 credit.
- StandardFrom $0.057/vCPU-hr, 99.99% SLA
- 99.99% availability SLA
- Single- or multi-region on AWS and GCP
- Row-level security
- Column-level encryption
- Private connectivity
- +2 more
- Mission Critical$0.162/vCPU-hr, 99.999% SLA
- 99.999% availability SLA with multi-region
- Egress controls
- CMEK
- PCI DSS & HIPAA compliance
- All add-ons available
- +1 more
Google Cloud Spanner
Usage-based pricing: compute capacity (nodes/processing units, hourly), storage (monthly), backups, data replication, network bandwidth. Free 90-day trial instances. Optional 1-year and 3-year committed use discounts. Three editions available: Standard, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus.
Platform & deployment
Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.
Integrations
What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.
CockroachDB
Leader- Datadog
- Splunk
- Dynatrace
- New Relic
- Terraform
- Vercel
- HashiCorp
- pgvector
- AWS
- GCP
- Azure
- Kubernetes
- MOLT (Migration Tool)
- PostgreSQL drivers
- SQLAlchemy
- Google Cloud
Google Cloud Spanner
- Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform
- Gemini CLI
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Agent Development Kit (ADK)
- Data Agent Kit
- VS Code
- Cursor
- GitHub Copilot
- Kiro
CockroachDB or Google Cloud Spanner: which one depends on you
A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.