DBMS > Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. GridDB vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Firebase Realtime Database vs. Google Cloud Bigtable vs. GridDB vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

Google's NoSQL Big Data database service. It's the same database that powers many core Google services, including Search, Analytics, Maps, and Gmail.

Scalable in-memory time series database optimized for IoT and Big Data

One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

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

Primary database model

Document store

Key-value store
Wide column store

Time Series DBMS

Document store

Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Search engine

integrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS

Time Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS

currently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only

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

Score	13.43
Rank	#39	Overall
	#6	Document stores

Score	2.93
Rank	#90	Overall
	#14	Key-value stores
	#8	Wide column stores

Score	1.91
Rank	#122	Overall
	#10	Time Series DBMS

Score	400.93
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	42.70
Rank	#21	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Website

firebase.google.com/products/realtime-database

cloud.google.com/bigtable

griddb.net

www.mongodb.com

neo4j.com

Technical documentation

firebase.google.com/docs/database

cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs

docs.griddb.net

www.mongodb.com/docs/manual

neo4j.com/docs

Developer

Google

acquired by Google 2014

Google

Toshiba Corporation

MongoDB, Inc

Neo4j, Inc.

Initial release

2012

2015

2013

2009

2007

Current release

5.1, August 2022

7.0.5, January 2024

5.23, August 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

AGPL version 3 and Apache License, version 2.0 , commercial license (standard and advanced editions) also available

Open Source

MongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

MongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

MongoDB Flex @ STACKIT offers managed MongoDB Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.
MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.

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

hosted

Linux

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

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

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

Although schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.

schema-free and schema-optional

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

numerical, string, blob, geometry, boolean, timestamp

yes

string, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatial

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL92, SQL-like TQL (Toshiba Query Language)

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interface

APIs and other access methods

Android
iOS
JavaScript API
RESTful HTTP API

gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
HappyBase (Python library)
HBase compatible API (Java)

JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Supported programming languages

Java
JavaScript
Objective-C

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

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

Actionscript

unofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure

unofficial driver
ColdFusion

unofficial driver
D

unofficial driver
Dart

unofficial driver
Delphi

unofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy

unofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp

unofficial driver
Lua

unofficial driver
MatLab

unofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell

unofficial driver
Prolog

unofficial driver
Python
R

unofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk

unofficial driver
Swift

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

limited functionality with using 'rules'

JavaScript

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

Callbacks are triggered when data changes

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Partitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Internal replication in Colossus, and regional replication between two clusters in different zones

Source-replica replication

Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Connector for using GridDB as an input source and output destination for Hadoop MapReduce jobs

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency

if the client is offline
Immediate Consistency

if the client is online

Immediate consistency (for a single cluster), Eventual consistency (for two or more replicated clusters)

Immediate consistency within container, eventual consistency across containers

Eventual Consistency

can be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency

default behaviour

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

yes

Atomic single-row operations

ACID at container level

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

User concepts

Access control

yes, based on authentication and database rules

Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Access rights for users and roles

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
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Competitive advantages

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
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Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Typical application scenarios

AI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
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Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Key customers

ADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
» more

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more

Market metrics

Hundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
» more

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
» more

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

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