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DBMS > Cassandra vs. GraphDB vs. MariaDB vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. GraphDB vs. MariaDB vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonGraphDB infoformer name: OWLIM  Xexclude from comparisonMariaDB  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessEnterprise-ready RDF and graph database with efficient reasoning, cluster and external index synchronization support. It supports also SQL JDBC access to Knowledge Graph and GraphQL over SPARQL.MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL.Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelWide column storeGraph DBMS
RDF store
Relational DBMSGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5Document store
Graph DBMS infowith OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score101.89
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score3.32
Rank#91  Overall
#6  Graph DBMS
#4  RDF stores
Score93.21
Rank#13  Overall
#9  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitecassandra.apache.orgwww.ontotext.commariadb.com infoSite of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org infoSite of MariaDB Foundation
neo4j.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestgraphdb.ontotext.com/­documentationmariadb.com/­kb/­en/­libraryneo4j.com/­docs
Social network pagesLinkedInTwitterYouTubeGitHubMedium
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookOntotextMariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server) infoThe lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL
Neo4j, Inc.
Initial release200820002009 infoFork of MySQL, which was first released in 19952007
Current release4.1.3, July 202310.4, October 202311.3.2, February 20245.19, April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2commercial infoSome plugins of GraphDB Workbench are open sourcedOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
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.
Astra DB: Multi-cloud DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra.Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageJavaJavaC and C++Java, Scala
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
All OS with a Java VM
Linux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows infoColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeschema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support; RDF shapesyes infoDynamic columns are supportedschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyes
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.nonoyes
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyes, supports real-time synchronization and indexing in SOLR/Elastic search/Lucene and GeoSPARQL geometry data indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)stored SPARQL accessed as SQL using Apache Calcite through JDBC/ODBCyes infowith proprietary extensionsno
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
GeoSPARQL
GraphQL
GraphQL Federation
Java API
JDBC
RDF4J API
RDFS
RIO
Sail API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL 1.1
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C#
Clojure
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Eiffel
Erlang
Go
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 infoStored proceduresnowell-defined plugin interfaces; JavaScript server-side extensibilityyes infoPL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3yes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersyesnoyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"noneseveral options for horizontal partitioning and Shardingyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleMulti-source replicationMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsyesnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infocan be individually decided for each write operation
Immediate Consistency, Eventual consistency (configurable in cluster mode per master or individual client request)Immediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyes infoConstraint checkingyes infonot for MyISAM storage engineyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDACID infonot for MyISAM storage engineACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infonot for in-memory storage engineyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes infowith MEMORY storage engine
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectDefault Basic authentication through RDF4J client, or via Java when run with cURL, default token-based in the Workbench or via Rest API, optional access through OpenID or Kerberos single sign-on.fine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraGraphDB infoformer name: OWLIMMariaDBNeo4j
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
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Ontotext GraphDB is a semantic database engine that allows organizations to build...
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MariaDB is the most powerful open source relational database – modern SQL and JSON...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
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Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
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GraphDB allows you to link text and data in big knowledge graphs. It’s easy to experiment...
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MariaDB Servers have many features unavailable in other open source relational databases....
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Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
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Metadata enrichment and management, linked data publishing, semantic inferencing...
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Web, SaaS and Cloud operational applications that require high availability, scalability...
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Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Key customersApple, Netflix, Uber, ING,, Intuit,Fidelity, NY Times, Outbrain, BazaarVoice, Best...
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​ GraphDB provides a platform for building next-generation AI and Knowledge Graph...
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Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, Nasdaq, Red Hat, ServiceNow, Verizon and Walgreens Featured...
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Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
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GraphDB is the most utilized semantic triplestore for mission-critical enterprise...
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MariaDB is the default database in the LAMP stack supplied by Red Hat and SUSE Linux,...
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Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
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GraphDB Free is a non-commercial version and is free to use. GraphDB Enterprise edition...
» more
MariaDB plc subscriptions cover our free, open source database, Community Server,...
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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