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DBMS > Dgraph vs. Neo4j vs. Sphinx vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison Dgraph vs. Neo4j vs. Sphinx vs. TimescaleDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameDgraph  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonTimescaleDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionDistributed and scalable native Graph DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesA time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL
Primary database modelGraph DBMSGraph DBMSSearch engineTime Series DBMS
Secondary database modelsRelational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score1.39
Rank#155  Overall
#15  Graph DBMS
Score42.68
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score5.97
Rank#56  Overall
#5  Search engines
Score4.06
Rank#73  Overall
#5  Time Series DBMS
Websitedgraph.ioneo4j.comsphinxsearch.comwww.timescale.com
Technical documentationdgraph.io/­docsneo4j.com/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docsdocs.timescale.com
DeveloperDgraph Labs, Inc.Neo4j, Inc.Sphinx Technologies Inc.Timescale
Initial release2016200720012017
Current release5.23, August 20243.5.1, February 20232.15.0, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availableOpen Source infoApache 2.0
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.
Implementation languageGoJava, ScalaC++C
Server operating systemsLinux
OS X
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
Data schemeschema-freeschema-free and schema-optionalyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesnonumerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types
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
Secondary indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes infofull-text index on all search fieldsyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnonoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)yes infofull PostgreSQL SQL syntax
APIs and other access methodsGraphQL query language
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Proprietary protocolADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresnoyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsnouser defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell
Triggersnoyes infovia event handlernoyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesyesyes using Neo4j FabricSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedyes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesSynchronous replication via RaftCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynoneSource-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas info
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 integritynoyes infoRelationships in graphsnoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.no
User concepts infoAccess controlno infoPlanned for future releasesUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)nofine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
DgraphNeo4jSphinxTimescaleDB
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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