DBMS > Amazon DynamoDB vs. HarperDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Neo4j vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison Amazon DynamoDB vs. HarperDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Neo4j vs. VoltDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Hosted, scalable database service by Amazon with the data stored in Amazons cloud

Ultra-low latency distributed database with an intuitive REST API supporting NoSQL and SQL (including joins). Deployment of functions and databases simultaneously with a consolidated node-level architecture.

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

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

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Document store
Key-value store

Document store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	74.07
Rank	#17	Overall
	#3	Document stores
	#2	Key-value stores

Score	0.55
Rank	#248	Overall
	#38	Document stores

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	1.44
Rank	#158	Overall
	#73	Relational DBMS

Website

aws.amazon.com/dynamodb

www.harperdb.io

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

neo4j.com

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

docs.aws.amazon.com/dynamodb

docs.harperdb.io/docs

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

neo4j.com/docs

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Amazon

HarperDB

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2012

2017

2014

2007

2010

Current release

3.1, August 2021

5.19, April 2024

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free tier for a limited amount of database operations

commercial

free community edition available

commercial

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

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

Node.js

Java, Scala

Java, C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
OS X

hosted

Linux

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

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

schema-free

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON data types

yes

JSON types

yes

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

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like data manipulation statements

SQL-like query language

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
ODBC
React Hooks
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
WebSocket

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

.Net
ColdFusion
Erlang
Groovy
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

.Net
C
C#
C++
ColdFusion
D
Dart
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
MatLab
Objective C
Perl
PHP
PowerShell
Prolog
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Swift

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

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

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Custom Functions

since release 3.1

JavaScript

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Java

Triggers

yes

by integration with AWS Lambda

JavaScript

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

A table resides as a whole on one (or more) nodes in a cluster

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

the nodes on which a table resides can be defined

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

may be implemented via Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR)

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be specified for read operations

Immediate Consistency

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

ACID across one or more tables within a single AWS account and region

Atomic execution of specific operations

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, using LMDB

yes

Snapshots and command logging

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 and roles can be defined via the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users and roles

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

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

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

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