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DBMS > Citus vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Citus vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameCitus  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionScalable hybrid operational and analytics RDBMS for big data use cases based on PostgreSQLA horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score2.21
Rank#118  Overall
#56  Relational DBMS
Score2.89
Rank#103  Overall
#52  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitewww.citusdata.comcloud.google.com/­spannerneo4j.com
Technical documentationdocs.citusdata.comcloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperGoogleNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release201020172007
Current release8.1, December 20185.19, April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoAGPL, commercial license also availablecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenoyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageCJava, Scala
Server operating systemsLinuxhostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesyesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
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.yes infospecific XML type available, but no XML query functionalityno
Secondary indexesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes infostandard, with numerous extensionsyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011no
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languages.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresuser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.noyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersyesnoyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingShardingyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsMulti-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACID infoStrict serializable isolationACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardAccess rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
CitusGoogle Cloud SpannerNeo4j
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsNeo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsGPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
News

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7 May 2024

This Week in Neo4j: GraphRAG, Knowledge Graphs, Open Source AI, GraphQL and more
4 May 2024

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27 April 2024

GQL is Here: Your Cypher Queries in a GQL World
26 April 2024

GQL: The ISO Standard for Graphs Has Arrived
25 April 2024

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

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More resources
CitusGoogle Cloud SpannerNeo4j
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