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DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Heroic vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Heroic vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFoundationDB  Xexclude from comparisonHeroic  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparison
Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market. As a consequence, the product was removed from the DB-Engines ranking. In April 2018, Apple open-sourced FoundationDB and it therefore reappears in the ranking.
DescriptionOrdered key-value store. Core features are complimented by layers.Time Series DBMS built at Spotify based on Cassandra or Google Cloud Bigtable, and ElasticSearchDatabase as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL ServerScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelDocument store infosupported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS infosupported via specific SQL-layer
Time Series DBMSRelational DBMSGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score1.03
Rank#190  Overall
#31  Document stores
#28  Key-value stores
#89  Relational DBMS
Score0.51
Rank#255  Overall
#21  Time Series DBMS
Score77.99
Rank#16  Overall
#11  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websitegithub.com/­apple/­foundationdbgithub.com/­spotify/­heroicazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­products/­azure-sql/­databaseneo4j.com
Technical documentationapple.github.io/­foundationdbspotify.github.io/­heroicdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­azure-sqlneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperFoundationDBSpotifyMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release2013201420102007
Current release6.2.28, November 2020V125.19, April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoApache 2.0commercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonoyesno
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 languageC++JavaC++Java, Scala
Server operating systemsLinux
OS X
Windows
hostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-free infosome layers support schemasschema-freeyesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateno infosome layers support typingyesyesyes
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 indexesnoyes infovia Elasticsearchyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLsupported in specific SQL layer onlynoyesno
APIs and other access methodsHQL (Heroic Query Language, a JSON-based language)
HTTP API
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languages.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift
.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 infoStored proceduresin SQL-layer onlynoTransact SQLyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnonoyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingShardingyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyesyesyes, with always 3 replicas availableCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemLinearizable consistencyEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityin SQL-layer onlynoyesyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnoACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.no
User concepts infoAccess controlnofine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
FoundationDBHeroicMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL AzureNeo4j
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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