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DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Neo4j vs. QuestDB vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Neo4j vs. QuestDB vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFoundationDB  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonQuestDB  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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.Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsA high performance open source SQL database for time series dataOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelDocument store infosupported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS infosupported via specific SQL-layer
Graph DBMSTime Series DBMSSearch engine
Secondary database modelsRelational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score1.06
Rank#185  Overall
#31  Document stores
#28  Key-value stores
#85  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score2.70
Rank#105  Overall
#8  Time Series DBMS
Score5.95
Rank#55  Overall
#5  Search engines
Websitegithub.com/­apple/­foundationdbneo4j.comquestdb.iosphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationapple.github.io/­foundationdbneo4j.com/­docsquestdb.io/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperFoundationDBNeo4j, Inc.QuestDB Technology IncSphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release2013200720142001
Current release6.2.28, November 20205.20, May 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
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 languageC++Java, ScalaJava (Zero-GC), C++, RustC++
Server operating systemsLinux
OS X
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
macOS
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-free infosome layers support schemasschema-free and schema-optionalyes infoschema-free via InfluxDB Line Protocolyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateno infosome layers support typingyesyesno
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.no
Secondary indexesnoyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucenenoyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLsupported in specific SQL layer onlynoSQL with time-series extensionsSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
HTTP REST
InfluxDB Line Protocol (TCP/UDP)
JDBC
PostgreSQL wire protocol
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languages.Net
C
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript infoNode.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C infoPostgreSQL driver
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Rust infoover HTTP
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresin SQL-layer onlyyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsnono
Triggersnoyes infovia event handlernono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j Fabrichorizontal partitioning (by timestamps)Sharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyesCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlySource-replica replication with eventual consistencynone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemLinearizable consistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityin SQL-layer onlyyes infoRelationships in graphsnono
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACID for single-table writesno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yes infothrough memory mapped files
User concepts infoAccess controlnoUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)no
More information provided by the system vendor
FoundationDBNeo4jQuestDBSphinx
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Relational model with native time series support Column-based storage and time partitioned...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
High ingestion throughput: peak of 4M rows/sec (TSBS Benchmark) Code optimizations...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Financial tick data Industrial IoT Application Metrics Monitoring
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Banks & Hedge funds, Yahoo, OKX, Airbus, Aquis Exchange, Net App, Cloudera, Airtel,...
» 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
Open source Apache 2.0 QuestDB Enterprise QuestDB Cloud
» more
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