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DBMS > Elasticsearch vs. GraphDB vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Elasticsearch vs. GraphDB vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameElasticsearch  Xexclude from comparisonGraphDB infoformer name: OWLIM  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionA distributed, RESTful modern search and analytics engine based on Apache Lucene infoElasticsearch lets you perform and combine many types of searches such as structured, unstructured, geo, and metricEnterprise-ready RDF and graph database with efficient reasoning, cluster and external index synchronization support. It supports also SQL JDBC access to Knowledge Graph and GraphQL over SPARQL.Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelSearch engine
Vector DBMS
Graph DBMS
RDF store
Graph DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score128.08
Rank#8  Overall
#1  Search engines
#1  Vector DBMS
Score2.57
Rank#95  Overall
#7  Graph DBMS
#3  RDF stores
Score47.59
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitewww.elastic.co/­elasticsearchwww.ontotext.comneo4j.com
Technical documentationwww.elastic.co/­guide/­en/­elasticsearch/­reference/­current/­index.htmlgraphdb.ontotext.com/­documentationneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperElasticOntotextNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release201020002007
Current release8.6, January 202310.4, October 20235.23, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoElastic Licensecommercial infoSome plugins of GraphDB Workbench are open sourcedOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageJavaJavaJava, Scala
Server operating systemsAll OS with a Java VMAll OS with a Java VM
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-free infoFlexible type definitions. Once a type is defined, it is persistentschema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support; RDF shapesschema-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.nono
Secondary indexesyes infoAll search fields are automatically indexedyes, supports real-time synchronization and indexing in SOLR/Elastic search/Lucene and GeoSPARQL geometry data indexesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like query languagestored SPARQL accessed as SQL using Apache Calcite through JDBC/ODBCno
APIs and other access methodsJava API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
GeoSPARQL
GraphQL
GraphQL Federation
Java API
JDBC
RDF4J API
RDFS
RIO
Sail API
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL 1.1
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languages.Net
Groovy
Community Contributed Clients
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
C#
Clojure
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyeswell-defined plugin interfaces; JavaScript server-side extensibilityyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersyes infoby using the 'percolation' featurenoyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingnoneyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyesMulti-source replicationCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsES-Hadoop Connectornono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency infoSynchronous doc based replication. Get by ID may show delays up to 1 sec. Configurable write consistency: one, quorum, allImmediate Consistency, Eventual consistency (configurable in cluster mode per master or individual client request)Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyes infoConstraint checkingyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanoACIDACID
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.Memcached and Redis integration
User concepts infoAccess controlDefault Basic authentication through RDF4J client, or via Java when run with cURL, default token-based in the Workbench or via Rest API, optional access through OpenID or Kerberos single sign-on.Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
ElasticsearchGraphDB infoformer name: OWLIMNeo4j
News

Transform Static Risk Assessment Into a Dynamic Data-Driven Strategy
22 April 2025

LLM Knowledge Graph Builder Back-End Architecture and API Overview
14 April 2025

Build an Intelligent Movie Search With Neo4j and Vertex AI
14 April 2025

This Week in Neo4j: NODES, GraphRAG, Agents, Knowledge Graph and more
12 April 2025

Google Cloud & Neo4j: Teaming Up at the Intersection of Knowledge Graphs, Agents, MCP, and Natural Language Interfaces
9 April 2025

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More resources
ElasticsearchGraphDB infoformer name: OWLIMNeo4j
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