DBMS > Firebird vs. Neo4j vs. Redis vs. TigerGraph vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Firebird vs. Neo4j vs. Redis vs. TigerGraph vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Firebird is an open source RDBMS forked from Borland's InterBase

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

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

A complete, distributed, parallel graph computing platform supporting web-scale data analytics in real-time

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	20.82
Rank	#30	Overall
	#18	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	1.83
Rank	#139	Overall
	#13	Graph DBMS

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

Technical documentation

www.firebirdsql.org/en/reference-manuals

neo4j.com/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

docs.tigergraph.com

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Firebird Foundation

Neo4j, Inc.

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2000

As fork of Borland's InterBase

2007

2009

2017

2005

Current release

5.0.0, January 2024

5.19, April 2024

7.2.4, January 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Initial Developer's Public License

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C and C++

Java, Scala

C++

Server operating systems

AIX
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
server-less

Firebird Embedded Server
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Linux

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

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

yes

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

yes

with RediSearch module

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with RediSQL module

SQL-like query language (GSQL)

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
C/C++ API
JDBC

Jaybird
ODBC
OLE DB

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

GSQL (TigerGraph Query Language)
Kafka
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Delphi
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

C++
Java

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

PSQL

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

yes

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

via event handler

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

yes

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

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

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Features a multi-generational MVCC architecture, readers do not block writers

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

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

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

Role-based access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing models

GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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