DBMS > BaseX vs. CouchDB vs. Memgraph vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison BaseX vs. CouchDB vs. Memgraph vs. MySQL vs. Neo4j

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Light-weight Native XML DBMS with support for XQuery 3.0 and interactive GUI.

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

An open source graph database built for real-time streaming and compatible with Neo4j

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

Primary database model

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	1.73
Rank	#142	Overall
	#4	Native XML DBMS

Score	9.30
Rank	#45	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	3.02
Rank	#98	Overall
	#8	Graph DBMS

Score	1083.74
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

docs.basex.org

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

memgraph.com/docs

dev.mysql.com/doc

neo4j.com/docs

Social network pages

Developer

BaseX GmbH

Apache Software Foundation

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

Memgraph Ltd

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Neo4j, Inc.

Initial release

2007

2005

2017

1995

2007

Current release

10.7, August 2023

3.3.3, December 2023

8.4.0, April 2024

5.19, April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

BSD license

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

BSL 1.1; commercial license for enterprise edition available

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

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.

Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

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

Implementation language

Java

Erlang

C and C++

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

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

Data scheme

schema-free

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

XQuery supports 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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

APIs and other access methods

Java API
RESTful HTTP API
RESTXQ
WebDAV
XML:DB
XQJ

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Supported programming languages

Actionscript
C
C#
Haskell
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lisp
Perl
PHP
Python
Qt
Rebol
Ruby
Scala
Visual Basic

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

.Net
C
C++
Elixir
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

View functions in JavaScript

yes

proprietary syntax

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

yes

via events

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

Sharding

dynamic graph partitioning

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication using RAFT

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

Immediate 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

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

multiple readers, single writer

atomic operations within a single document possible

ACID

with snapshot isolation

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

with periodic snapshot and write-ahead logging (WAL) of changes

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

Users with fine-grained authorization concept on 4 levels

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Users, roles and permissions

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Memgraph directly connects to your streaming infrastructure so you and your team...
» more

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

Competitive advantages

Business Source License ensures a future for the Memgraph community MAGE algorithm...
» more

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

Typical application scenarios

Graph algorithms in bioinformatics Social network analysis Cryptocurrency network...
» more

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

You can check out our pricing model and licenses on the company website .
» more

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

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