DBMS > Amazon Neptune vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. Stardog
System Properties Comparison Amazon Neptune vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. Stardog
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| Name | Amazon Neptune Xexclude from comparison | Google Cloud Spanner Xexclude from comparison | Neo4j Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | Stardog Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | Fast, reliable graph database built for the cloud | A horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play. | Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings | Widely used open source RDBMS  Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL | Enterprise Knowledge Graph platform and graph DBMS with high availability, high performance reasoning, and virtualization | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary database model | Graph DBMS RDF store | Relational DBMS | Graph DBMS | Relational DBMS with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module. | Graph DBMS RDF store | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | aws.amazon.com/neptune | cloud.google.com/spanner | neo4j.com | www.postgresql.org | www.stardog.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | aws.amazon.com/neptune/developer-resources | cloud.google.com/spanner/docs | neo4j.com/docs | www.postgresql.org/docs | docs.stardog.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Amazon | Neo4j, Inc. | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | Stardog-Union | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 2017 | 2017 | 2007 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 5.19, April 2024 | 16.2, February 2024 | 7.3.0, May 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | commercial | commercial | Open Source GPL version3, commercial licenses available | Open Source BSD | commercial 60-day fully-featured trial license; 1-year fully-featured non-commercial use license for academics/students | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud-based only Only available as a cloud service | yes | yes | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. | Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Implementation language | Java, Scala | C | Java | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server operating systems | hosted | hosted | Linux Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database. OS X Solaris Windows | FreeBSD HP-UX Linux NetBSD OpenBSD OS X Solaris Unix Windows | Linux macOS Windows | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | schema-free | yes | schema-free and schema-optional | yes | schema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | yes | yes | yes | 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. | no | no | yes specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality. | no Import/export of XML data possible | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary indexes | no | yes | yes pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene | yes | yes supports real-time indexing in full-text and geospatial | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SQL Support of SQL | no | yes Query statements complying to ANSI 2011 | no | yes standard with numerous extensions | Yes, compatible with all major SQL variants through dedicated BI/SQL Server | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | OpenCypher RDF 1.1 / SPARQL 1.1 TinkerPop Gremlin | gRPC (using protocol buffers) API JDBC At present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.RESTful HTTP API | Bolt protocol Cypher query language Java API Neo4j-OGM Object Graph MapperRESTful HTTP API Spring Data Neo4j TinkerPop 3 | ADO.NET JDBC native C library ODBC streaming API for large objects | GraphQL query language HTTP API Jena RDF API OWL RDF4J API Sesame REST HTTP Protocol SNARL SPARQL Spring Data Stardog Studio TinkerPop 3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supported programming languages | C# Go Java JavaScript PHP Python Ruby Scala | Go Java JavaScript (Node.js) Python | .Net Clojure Elixir Go Groovy Haskell Java JavaScript Perl PHP Python Ruby Scala | .Net C C++ Delphi Java JDBCJavaScript (Node.js) Perl PHP Python Tcl | .Net Clojure Groovy Java JavaScript Python Ruby | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | no | no | yes User defined Procedures and Functions | user defined functions realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc. | user defined functions and aggregates, HTTP Server extensions in Java | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Triggers | no | no | yes via event handler | yes | yes via event handlers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Partitioning methods Methods for storing different data on different nodes | none | Sharding | yes using Neo4j Fabric | partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash | none | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Replication methods Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes | Multi-availability zones high availability, asynchronous replication for up to 15 read replicas within a single region. Global database clusters consists of a primary write DB cluster in one region, and up to five secondary read DB clusters in different regions. Each secondary region can have up to 16 reader instances. | Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances. | Causal Clustering using Raft protocol available in in Enterprise Version only | Source-replica replication other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions | Multi-source replication in HA-Cluster | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | no | yes using Google Cloud Dataflow | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consistency concepts Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency in HA-Cluster | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | yes Relationships in graphs | yes by using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrity | yes Relationships in graphs | yes | yes relationships in graphs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transaction concepts Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data | ACID | ACID Strict serializable isolation | ACID | ACID | ACID | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes with encyption-at-rest | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-memory capabilities Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only. | no | no | 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, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) | Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos) | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | Access rights for users and roles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More information provided by the system vendor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon Neptune | Google Cloud Spanner | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | Stardog | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | This Week in Neo4j: Google Cloud, Analysis, Knowledge Graph, Relationships and more Announcing NODES 2024: Submit Your Talk ISO GQL: A Defining Moment in the History of Database Innovation This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, RAG, Neo4j Guide, ERP and more Neo4j Brings GraphRAG Capabilities for GenAI to Google Cloud | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 3rd parties | Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
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| More resources | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon Neptune | Google Cloud Spanner | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | Stardog | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DB-Engines blog posts | Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023 Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Conferences, events and webinars | Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recent citations in the news | AWS announces Amazon Neptune I/O-Optimized Uncover hidden connections in unstructured financial data with Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Neptune | Amazon Web ... Unleashing the power of Graphs: operating 5G networks with GNN and generative AI on AWS | Amazon Web Services Amazon Neptune Analytics is now generally available Analyze large amounts of graph data to get insights and find trends with Amazon Neptune Analytics | Amazon Web ... provided by Google News | Google Improves Cloud Spanner: More Compute and Storage without Price Increase Google turns up the heat on AWS, claims Cloud Spanner is half the cost of DynamoDB Google makes its Cloud Spanner database service faster and more cost-efficient Google Spanner: When Do You Need to Move to It? Google Cloud Spanner competes directly with Amazon DynamoDB provided by Google News | Neo4j Welcomes New GQL International Standard in Major Milestone for Database Industry USA - English Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure Neo4j, Microsoft add graph features to Azure AI services Leveraging Neo4j and Amazon Bedrock for an Explainable, Secure, and Connected Generative AI Solution | Amazon ... Neo4j Is Planning IPO on Nasdaq, Largest Owner Greenbridge Says provided by Google News | Leveraging PostgreSQL for Cutting-Edge Generative AI Applications: Insights from Google's Product Managers Handle tables without primary keys while creating Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL zero-ETL integrations with Amazon ... Introducing OCI Database with PostgreSQL: Completing Our Cloud Database Suite for Every Need PostgreSQL or MySQL: What Should I Choose for My Full-Stack Project? PeerDB raises $3.6M to accelerate PostgreSQL data movement provided by Google News | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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