DBMS > AlaSQL vs. Apache Impala vs. Neo4j vs. SQLite

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. Apache Impala vs. Neo4j vs. SQLite

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

Analytic DBMS for Hadoop

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

Widely used embeddable, in-process RDBMS

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	0.49
Rank	#259	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#120	Relational DBMS

Score	14.03
Rank	#40	Overall
	#24	Relational DBMS

Score	44.47
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	116.01
Rank	#10	Overall
	#7	Relational DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

impala.apache.org/impala-docs.html

neo4j.com/docs

www.sqlite.org/docs.html

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Cloudera

Neo4j, Inc.

Dwayne Richard Hipp

Initial release

2014

2013

2007

2000

Current release

4.1.0, June 2022

5.18.1, March 2024

3.45.2 (12 March 2024), March 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Public Domain

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

Implementation language

JavaScript

C++

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

server-less

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

dynamic column types

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

not rigid because of 'dynamic typing' concept.

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

SQL-92 is not fully supported

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

JDBC
ODBC

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

ADO.NET

inofficial driver
JDBC

inofficial driver
ODBC

inofficial driver

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC

.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Actionscript
Ada
Basic
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Forth
Fortran
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions and integration of map-reduce

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

yes using Neo4j Fabric

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

selectable replication factor

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

query execution via MapReduce

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Eventual Consistency

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

via file-system locks

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users, groups and roles

based on Apache Sentry and Kerberos

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more

Competitive advantages

Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more

Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more

Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more

News

Announcing NODES 2024: Submit Your Talk
17 April 2024

ISO GQL: A Defining Moment in the History of Database Innovation
17 April 2024

This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, RAG, Neo4j Guide, ERP and more
13 April 2024

Neo4j Brings GraphRAG Capabilities for GenAI to Google Cloud
9 April 2024

Neo4j Is Now SOC2 Type 2 Compliant
8 April 2024

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