DBMS > ArangoDB vs. CouchDB vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J

System Properties Comparison ArangoDB vs. CouchDB vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Native multi-model DBMS for graph, document, key/value and search. All in one engine and accessible with one query language.

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

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

RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.

Primary database model

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Search engine

Document store

Graph DBMS

RDF store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Spatial DBMS
Search engine

integrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS

Time Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS

currently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only

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

Score	3.32
Rank	#90	Overall
	#15	Document stores
	#5	Graph DBMS
	#12	Key-value stores
	#10	Search engines

Score	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	421.65
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	0.69
Rank	#230	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Website

Technical documentation

docs.arangodb.com

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

www.mongodb.com/docs/manual

neo4j.com/docs

rdf4j.org/documentation

Social network pages

Developer

ArangoDB Inc.

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

MongoDB, Inc

Neo4j, Inc.

Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.

Initial release

2012

2005

2009

2007

2004

Current release

3.11.5, November 2023

3.3.3, December 2023

6.0.7, June 2023

5.19, April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2; Commercial license (Enterprise) available

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

MongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

MongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

ArangoDB Cloud –The Managed Cloud Service of ArangoDB. Provides fully managed, and monitored cluster deployments of any size, with enterprise-grade security. Get started for free and continue for as little as $0,21/hour.

MongoDB Flex @ STACKIT offers managed MongoDB Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.
MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.

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

Implementation language

C++

Erlang

C++

Java, Scala

Java

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

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

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free

automatically recognizes schema within a collection

schema-free

Although schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

RDF Schemas

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, double, boolean, list, hash

yes

string, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatial

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

via views

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interface

APIs and other access methods

AQL
Foxx Framework
Graph API (Gremlin)
GraphQL query language
HTTP API
Java & SpringData
JSON style queries
VelocyPack/VelocyStream

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Rust

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

Actionscript

unofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure

unofficial driver
ColdFusion

unofficial driver
D

unofficial driver
Dart

unofficial driver
Delphi

unofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy

unofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp

unofficial driver
Lua

unofficial driver
MatLab

unofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell

unofficial driver
Prolog

unofficial driver
Python
R

unofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk

unofficial driver
Swift

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

Java
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

JavaScript

View functions in JavaScript

JavaScript

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes

Triggers

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

yes

via event handler

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

since version 2.0

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

Sharding

Partitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.

yes using Neo4j Fabric

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication with configurable replication factor

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

can be done with stored procedures in JavaScript

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

configurable per collection or per write
Immediate Consistency
OneShard (highly available, fault-tolerant deployment mode with ACID semantics)

Eventual Consistency

can be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency

default behaviour

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

relationships in graphs

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

atomic operations within a single document possible

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

User concepts

Access control

yes

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Access rights for users and roles

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Graph and Beyond. With more than 11,000 stargazers on GitHub, ArangoDB is the leading...
» more

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
» more

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

Competitive advantages

Consolidation: As a native multi-model database, can be used as a full blown document...
» more

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
» more

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

Typical application scenarios

Native multi-model in ArangoDB is being used for a broad range of projects across...
» more

AI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
» more

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

Key customers

Cisco, Barclays, Refinitive, Siemens Mentor, Kabbage, Liaison, Douglas, MakeMyTrip,...
» more

ADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
» more

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

Market metrics

ArangoDB is the leading native multi-model database with over 11,000 stargazers on...
» more

Hundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
» more

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

Licensing and pricing models

Very permissive Apache 2 License for Community Edition & commercial licenses are...
» more

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
» more

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

News

Neo4j Joins the Connect with Confluent Partner Program
16 May 2024

10 Inspiring Projects to Spark Your NODES 2024 Presentation
15 May 2024

New Security Feature in Neo4j Aura: Customer Managed Keys
15 May 2024

Safeguarding Elections: How Graph Technology Powers Groundbreaking Research on Political Ads
13 May 2024

This Week in Neo4j: GraphRAG, Testcontainers, Metadata Management, App Dev and more
11 May 2024

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.