# Google Cloud Spanner vs PlanetScale

**Leader by Vioscale score:** PlanetScale

| Attribute | Google Cloud Spanner | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 43.9 (39% (low)) | 67.3 (70% (medium)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | Google Cloud's globally distributed, multi-model database supporting relational, graph, key-value, and search capabilities with native PostgreSQL interface and Gemini AI integration. | A cloud database platform offering both Vitess (MySQL-compatible with horizontal sharding) and Postgres databases for high-performance, large-scale workloads. |
| features.capabilities | `{"isolation":"serializable","sql_model":"full_sql","deployment":"managed","consistency":"strong","replication":"consensus","extensibility":true,"license_class":"proprietary","horizontal_scale":"distributed_native","acid_transactions":"full","automatic_failover":true,"wire_compatibility":"postgres"}` | `{"sql_model":"full_sql","deployment":"managed","extensibility":true,"license_class":"proprietary","horizontal_scale":"sharded"}` |
| integrations.count | 5 | 1 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform"},{"name":"Gemini CLI"},{"name":"Model Context Protocol (MCP)"},{"name":"Agent Development Kit (ADK)"},{"name":"Data Agent Kit"}]` | `[{"name":"Vantage"}]` |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | - | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","summary":"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.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cloud.google.com/spanner","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T12:40:26.715Z","freeTrialDays":90,"billingPeriods":["hour","month"]}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Postgres Single Node","summary":"Starting at $5/month","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":5,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Development and low-traffic production workloads","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Postgres Metal","summary":"Starting at $50/month","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":50,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"High-performance local NVMe storage with unlimited IOPS","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Postgres HA (PS-5 example)","summary":"$15/month for PS-5 tier (1/16 vCPU, 512MB RAM, 10GB storage, 3 nodes, 99.99% SLA)","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":15,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"High availability with 1 primary + 2 replicas across 3 availability zones","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"egress":"100 GB/month"}},{"free":false,"name":"Vitess","summary":"Custom pricing based on cluster size, VTGate configuration, and storage","description":"MySQL-compatible with horizontal sharding for massive scale","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","description":"All features with upgraded support, migration assistance, and bring-your-own-cloud deployment","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Egress bandwidth","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.06,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Storage (network-attached, beyond 10GB free)"},{"name":"Additional development branch hours"},{"name":"SSO"}],"summary":"From $5/month for Postgres Single Node. Resource-based pricing with pay-as-you-go for storage overage and egress.","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://planetscale.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T12:42:46.087Z","startingPrice":{"amount":5,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | no |
| pricing.model | commercial | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | low | low |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.pci | - | yes |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |

## Capabilities (Relational Databases)

| Capability | Google Cloud Spanner | PlanetScale |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| SQL model | Full SQL | Full SQL |
| **Transactions** |  |  |
| ACID transactions | Full | - |
| Highest isolation level | Serializable | - |
| **Consistency** |  |  |
| Consistency | Strong | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Horizontal scale | Natively distributed | Sharded |
| **Replication** |  |  |
| Replication | Consensus (Raft/Paxos) | - |
| **Availability** |  |  |
| Automatic failover / HA | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Managed | Managed |
| Serverless / scale-to-zero | - | - |
| **Compatibility** |  |  |
| Wire compatibility | Postgres protocol | - |
| **Extensibility** |  |  |
| Extensions / plugins / UDFs | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| **Data types** |  |  |
| JSON / document support | - | - |
| Geo / spatial | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:56:26.716Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*