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DBMS > Datomic vs. Drizzle vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison Datomic vs. Drizzle vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameDatomic  Xexclude from comparisonDrizzle  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparison
Drizzle has published its last release in September 2012. The open-source project is discontinued and Drizzle is excluded from the DB-Engines ranking.
DescriptionDatomic builds on immutable values, supports point-in-time queries and uses 3rd party systems for durabilityMySQL fork with a pluggable micro-kernel and with an emphasis of performance over compatibility.Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score1.66
Rank#144  Overall
#66  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score636.25
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Websitewww.datomic.comneo4j.comwww.postgresql.org
Technical documentationdocs.datomic.comneo4j.com/­docswww.postgresql.org/­docs
DeveloperCognitectDrizzle project, originally started by Brian AkerNeo4j, Inc.PostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developer
Initial release2012200820071989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL
Current release1.0.7075, December 20237.2.4, September 20125.20, May 202416.3, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infolimited edition freeOpen Source infoGNU GPLOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoBSD
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.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
  • Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
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Implementation languageJava, ClojureC++Java, ScalaC
Server operating systemsAll OS with a Java VMFreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Data schemeyesyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes
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.noyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.
Secondary indexesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoyes infowith proprietary extensionsnoyes infostandard with numerous extensions
APIs and other access methodsRESTful HTTP APIJDBCBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesClojure
Java
C
C++
Java
PHP
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyes infoTransaction Functionsnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsuser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.
TriggersBy using transaction functionsno infohooks for callbacks inside the server can be used.yes infovia event handleryes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesnone infoBut extensive use of caching in the application peersShardingyes using Neo4j Fabricpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesnone infoBut extensive use of caching in the application peersMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlySource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensions
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyes infousing external storage systems (e.g. Cassandra, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, Couchbase and others)yesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yes inforecommended only for testing and developmentno
User concepts infoAccess controlnoPluggable authentication mechanisms infoe.g. LDAP, HTTPUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
DatomicDrizzleNeo4jPostgreSQL
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
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