Google Cloud Spanner
6.6#11 in distributed sql databasesWebAPILinuxSelf-hosted
VisitGoogle Cloud Spanner vs TiDB Cloud
TiDB Cloud
8.1#1 in distributed systemsFree planFree planWebAPILinuxSelf-hosted
VisitWhat both publish
| Fact | Google Cloud Spanner | TiDB Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
Google Cloud Spanner plans
- Standard—
- Enterprise—
- Enterprise Plus—
- Spanner free trial instanceFree
- Standard edition compute$0.03 a month
- Enterprise edition compute$0.04 a month
TiDB Cloud plans
- TiDB Cloud Essential—
- TiDB Cloud Premium$1,800 a month
- TiDB Cloud Dedicated$0.22 a month
- TiDB Cloud StarterFree
- StarterFree
- Essential$400 a month
Pick Google Cloud Spanner if…
Spanner may suit teams building distributed applications that need transactional consistency, scaling, or multiple data models. Its Omni deployment option may interest teams running databases on-premises, across clouds, or on a laptop.
Pick TiDB Cloud if…
TiDB Cloud may suit teams needing a managed MySQL-compatible database for transactional and analytical workloads. Starter's free quota and scale-to-zero compute may interest organizations evaluating the service or running workloads with idle periods.