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DBMS > Apache Impala vs. Milvus vs. Neo4j vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Apache Impala vs. Milvus vs. Neo4j vs. Weaviate

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameApache Impala  Xexclude from comparisonMilvus  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonWeaviate  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionAnalytic DBMS for HadoopA DBMS designed for efficient storage of vector data and vector similarity searchesScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsAn AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.
Primary database modelRelational DBMSVector DBMSGraph DBMSVector DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score12.45
Rank#40  Overall
#24  Relational DBMS
Score2.78
Rank#103  Overall
#4  Vector DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score1.52
Rank#153  Overall
#6  Vector DBMS
Websiteimpala.apache.orgmilvus.ioneo4j.comgithub.com/­weaviate/­weaviate
weaviate.io
Technical documentationimpala.apache.org/­impala-docs.htmlmilvus.io/­docs/­overview.mdneo4j.com/­docsweaviate.io/­developers/­weaviate
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top-level project, originally developed by ClouderaNeo4j, Inc.Weaviate B.V.
Initial release2013201920072019
Current release4.1.0, June 20222.4.4, May 20245.20, May 20241.19, May 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache Version 2Open Source infoApache Version 2.0Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infocommercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Zilliz Cloud – Cloud-native service for MilvusNeo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC++C++, GoJava, ScalaGo
Server operating systemsLinuxLinux
macOS info10.14 or later
Windows infowith WSL 2 enabled
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes, maps to GraphQL interface
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesVector, Numeric and Stringyesyes infostring, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.nonono
Secondary indexesyesnoyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes infoall data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like DML and DDL statementsnonoGraphQL is used as query language
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP APIBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
Supported programming languagesAll languages supporting JDBC/ODBCC++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
JavaScript / TypeScript
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyes infouser defined functions and integration of map-reducenoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersnonoyes infovia event handlerno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingShardingyes using Neo4j FabricSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factorCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlyyes
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyes infoquery execution via MapReducenonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual ConsistencyBounded Staleness
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Session Consistency
Tunable Consistency
Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Eventual Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynonoyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanonoACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyesyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users, groups and roles infobased on Apache Sentry and KerberosRole based access control and fine grained access rightsUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery
More information provided by the system vendor
Apache ImpalaMilvusNeo4jWeaviate
Specific characteristicsMilvus is an open-source and cloud-native vector database built for production-ready...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
» more
Competitive advantagesHighly available, versatile, and robust with millisecond latency. Supports batch...
» more
Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
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Typical application scenariosRAG: retrieval augmented generation Video media : video understanding, video deduplication....
» more
Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
» more
Key customersMilvus is trusted by thousands of enterprises, including PayPal, eBay, IKEA, LINE,...
» more
Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
All companies that have data. ​
» more
Market metricsAs of January 2024, 25k+ GitHub stars 10M+ downloads and installations​ ​ 3k+ enterprise...
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Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsMilvus was released under the open-source Apache License 2.0 in October 2019. Fully-managed...
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
» more
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