DB-EnginesextremeDB - solve IoT connectivity disruptionsEnglish
Deutsch
Knowledge Base of Relational and NoSQL Database Management Systemsprovided by Redgate Software

DBMS > FoundationDB vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

System Properties Comparison FoundationDB vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameFoundationDB  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSurrealDB  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Created as commercial project in 2013, FoundationDB has been acquired by Apple in March 2015 and was withdrawn from the market.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 fully ACID transactional, developer-friendly, multi-model DBMS
Primary database modelDocument store infosupported via specific layer
Key-value store
Relational DBMS infosupported via specific SQL-layer
Graph DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score0.89
Rank#197  Overall
#32  Document stores
#29  Key-value stores
#92  Relational DBMS
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score1.08
Rank#176  Overall
#30  Document stores
#16  Graph DBMS
Websitegithub.com/­apple/­foundationdbneo4j.comsurrealdb.com
Technical documentationapple.github.io/­foundationdbneo4j.com/­docssurrealdb.com/­docs
DeveloperFoundationDBNeo4j, Inc.SurrealDB Ltd
Initial release201320072022
Current release6.2.28, November 20205.23, August 2024v1.5.0, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source
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 languageC++Java, ScalaRust
Server operating systemsLinux
OS X
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
macOS
Windows
Data schemeschema-free infosome layers support schemasschema-free and schema-optionalschema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateno infosome layers support typingyesyes
Secondary indexesnoyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLsupported in specific SQL layer onlynoSQL-like query language
APIs and other access methodsBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
GraphQL
RESTful HTTP API
WebSocket
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
Deno
Go
JavaScript (Node.js)
Rust
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresin SQL-layer onlyyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersnoyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyesCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonono
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
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityin SQL-layer onlyyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
User concepts infoAccess controlnoUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)yes, based on authentication and database rules
More information provided by the system vendor
FoundationDBNeo4jSurrealDB
News

This Week in Neo4j: NODES, Knowledge Graph, Graph Analytics, MCP and more
10 May 2025

Aura Graph Analytics: A Technical Deep Dive
7 May 2025

Introducing Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics: Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy Graph Analytics for Any Data Source
7 May 2025

Agentic GraphRAG for Commercial Contracts
5 May 2025

Simplify Modern Application Development With GraphQL on Neo4j AuraDB
30 April 2025

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources
FoundationDBNeo4jSurrealDB
DB-Engines blog posts

Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones
12 June 2019, Amy Hodler & Mark Needham, Neo4j (guest author)

MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking
2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs
22 December 2015, Emil Eifrem (guest author)

show all

Recent citations in the news

Apple Acquires Durable Database Company FoundationDB
24 March 2015, TechCrunch

FoundationDB Record Layer: A Multi-Tenant Structured Datastore
25 July 2020, Apple Machine Learning Research

FoundationDB team’s new venture, Antithesis, raises $47M to enhance software testing
13 February 2024, SiliconANGLE

IBM Cloudant pulls plan to fund new foundational layer for CouchDB
15 March 2022, theregister.com

FoundationDB, a very interesting NoSQL database owned by Apple, is now an open-source project
19 April 2018, GeekWire

provided by Google News

NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
7 May 2025, theregister.com

Neo4j goes serverless, bringing graph analytics to any data source
7 May 2025, SiliconANGLE

Latest Neo4j release aims to simplify graph technology
7 May 2025, TechTarget

Neo4j Launches Industry's First Graph Analytics Offering For Any Data Platform
7 May 2025, PR Newswire

Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop, Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics, and more software development news
7 May 2025, SD Times

provided by Google News

SurrealDB Launches Surreal Cloud, a Fully Managed Database Service That Tackles the Complexity Issues Faced by Developer Teams
7 December 2024, insideAI News

SurrealDB Empowers Developers to Build Applications with the Launch of SurrealDB University
15 October 2024, Business Wire

SurrealDB's Surreal Cloud debuts on AWS S3 for scalable multimodel database as a service
4 December 2024, SiliconANGLE

SurrealDB is helping developers consolidate their databases
18 June 2024, TechCrunch

London-based SurrealDB secures over €18.6 million aiming to disrupt database technology
18 June 2024, EU-Startups

provided by Google News



Share this page

Featured Products

Datastax Astra logo

Bring all your data to Generative AI applications with vector search enabled by the most scalable
vector database available.
Try for Free

RaimaDB logo

RaimaDB, embedded database for mission-critical applications. When performance, footprint and reliability matters.
Try RaimaDB for free.

Milvus logo

Vector database designed for GenAI, fully equipped for enterprise implementation.
Try Managed Milvus for Free

Neo4j logo

See for yourself how a graph database can make your life easier.
Use Neo4j online for free.

SingleStore logo

The data platform to build your intelligent applications.
Try it free.

Present your product here