Google Cloud Bigtable vs Google Cloud Datastore: What are the differences?

What is Google Cloud Bigtable? The same database that powers Google Search, Gmail and Analytics. Google Cloud Bigtable offers you a fast, fully managed, massively scalable NoSQL database service that's ideal for web, mobile, and Internet of Things applications requiring terabytes to petabytes of data. Unlike comparable market offerings, Cloud Bigtable doesn't require you to sacrifice speed, scale, or cost efficiency when your applications grow. Cloud Bigtable has been battle-tested at Google for more than 10 years—it's the database driving major applications such as Google Analytics and Gmail.

What is Google Cloud Datastore? A Fully Managed NoSQL Data Storage Service. Use a managed, NoSQL, schemaless database for storing non-relational data. Cloud Datastore automatically scales as you need it and supports transactions as well as robust, SQL-like queries.

Google Cloud Bigtable and Google Cloud Datastore can be primarily classified as "NoSQL Database as a Service" tools.

Some of the features offered by Google Cloud Bigtable are:

• Unmatched Performance: Single-digit millisecond latency and over 2X the performance per dollar of unmanaged NoSQL alternatives.
• Open Source Interface: Because Cloud Bigtable is accessed through the HBase API, it is natively integrated with much of the existing big data and Hadoop ecosystem and supports Google’s big data products. Additionally, data can be imported from or exported to existing HBase clusters through simple bulk ingestion tools using industry-standard formats.
• Low Cost: By providing a fully managed service and exceptional efficiency, Cloud Bigtable’s total cost of ownership is less than half the cost of its direct competition.

On the other hand, Google Cloud Datastore provides the following key features:

• Schemaless access, with SQL-like querying
• Managed database
• Autoscale with your users

"High performance" is the primary reason why developers consider Google Cloud Bigtable over the competitors, whereas "High scalability" was stated as the key factor in picking Google Cloud Datastore.

Policygenius, Teleport, and Como are some of the popular companies that use Google Cloud Datastore, whereas Google Cloud Bigtable is used by Spotify, Resultados Digitais, and Rainist. Google Cloud Datastore has a broader approval, being mentioned in 46 company stacks & 16 developers stacks; compared to Google Cloud Bigtable, which is listed in 17 company stacks and 3 developer stacks.