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DBMS > Cassandra vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Cassandra vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCassandra  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionWide-column store based on ideas of BigTable and DynamoDB infoOptimized for write accessScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsRDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelWide column storeGraph DBMSRDF storeSearch engine
Secondary database modelsVector DBMS infostarting with release V5
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score103.86
Rank#12  Overall
#1  Wide column stores
Score44.47
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score0.71
Rank#231  Overall
#9  RDF stores
Score6.03
Rank#60  Overall
#6  Search engines
Websitecassandra.apache.orgneo4j.comrdf4j.orgsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationcassandra.apache.org/­doc/­latestneo4j.com/­docsrdf4j.org/­documentationsphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperApache Software Foundation infoApache top level project, originally developped by FacebookNeo4j, Inc.Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.Sphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release2008200720042001
Current release4.1.3, July 20235.19, April 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache version 2Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoEclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence 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 languageJavaJava, ScalaJavaC++
Server operating systemsBSD
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeschema-free and schema-optionalyes infoRDF Schemasyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesno
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.no
Secondary indexesrestricted infoonly equality queries, not always the best performing solutionyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like SELECT, DML and DDL statements (CQL)nonoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsProprietary protocol infoCQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
Thrift
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Java API
RIO infoRDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL infoSesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Clojure
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Java
PHP
Python
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsyesno
Triggersyesyes infovia event handleryesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infono "single point of failure"yes using Neo4j FabricnoneSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesselectable replication factor infoRepresentation of geographical distribution of servers is possibleCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynonenone
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
Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datano infoAtomicity and isolation are supported for single operationsACIDACID infoIsolation support depends on the API usedno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoin-memory storage is supported as wellyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.no
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights for users can be defined per objectUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)nono
More information provided by the system vendor
CassandraNeo4jRDF4J infoformerly known as SesameSphinx
Specific characteristicsApache Cassandra is the leading NoSQL, distributed database management system, well...
» more
Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNo single point of failure ensures 100% availability . Operational simplicity for...
» more
Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosInternet of Things (IOT), fraud detection applications, recommendation engines, product...
» more
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...
» more
Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsCassandra is used by 40% of the Fortune 100.
» more
Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsApache license  Pricing for commercial distributions provided by DataStax and available...
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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