DBMS > Dgraph vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Dgraph vs. Firebase Realtime Database vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Neo4j

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Distributed and scalable native Graph DBMS

Cloud-hosted realtime document store. iOS, Android, and JavaScript clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data.

Globally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database service

Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server

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

Primary database model

Graph DBMS

Document store

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	1.45
Rank	#156	Overall
	#15	Graph DBMS

Score	14.29
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	29.04
Rank	#27	Overall
	#4	Document stores
	#2	Graph DBMS
	#3	Key-value stores
	#3	Wide column stores

Score	77.99
Rank	#16	Overall
	#11	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Website

dgraph.io

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

azure.microsoft.com/services/cosmos-db

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database

neo4j.com

Technical documentation

dgraph.io/docs

firebase.google.com/docs/database

learn.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql

neo4j.com/docs

Developer

Dgraph Labs, Inc.

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

Initial release

2016

2012

2014

2010

2007

Current release

V12

5.19, April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database 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 language

C++

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

hosted

Linux

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

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

JSON 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

All properties auto-indexed by default

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

yes

APIs and other access methods

GraphQL query language
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HTTP API

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

DocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Supported programming languages

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python

.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

JavaScript

Transact SQL

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

JavaScript

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Synchronous replication via Raft

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, with always 3 replicas available

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

Integration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Bounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable on request level
Session 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

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

yes

Multi-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partition

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

User concepts

Access control

Planned for future releases

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

Competitive advantages

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

Typical application scenarios

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

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

News

Creating the GQL Database Language Standard
7 May 2024

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

This Week in Neo4j: Nodes 2024, Data Modelling, Events, Knowledge Graphs and more
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.