DBMS > GigaSpaces vs. Ignite vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. NCache vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison GigaSpaces vs. Ignite vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. NCache vs. Neo4j

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

High performance in-memory data grid platform, powering three products: Smart Cache, Smart ODS (Operational Data Store), Smart Augmented Transactions

Apache Ignite is a memory-centric distributed database, caching, and processing platform for transactional, analytical, and streaming workloads, delivering in-memory speeds at petabyte scale.

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Open-Source and Enterprise in-memory Key-Value Store

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
Object oriented DBMS

Values are user defined objects

Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Graph DBMS
Search engine

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Search engine

Using distributed Lucene

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

Score	0.97
Rank	#192	Overall
	#32	Document stores
	#6	Object oriented DBMS

Score	3.16
Rank	#96	Overall
	#15	Key-value stores
	#49	Relational DBMS

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	0.94
Rank	#195	Overall
	#29	Key-value stores

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Website

www.gigaspaces.com

ignite.apache.org

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

www.alachisoft.com/ncache

neo4j.com

Technical documentation

docs.gigaspaces.com/latest/landing.html

apacheignite.readme.io/docs

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs

neo4j.com/docs

Developer

Gigaspaces Technologies

Apache Software Foundation

Microsoft

Alachisoft

Neo4j, Inc.

Initial release

2000

2015

1989

2005

2007

Current release

15.5, September 2020

Apache Ignite 2.6

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.3.3, April 2024

5.19, April 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2; Commercial licenses available

Open Source

Apache 2.0

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Enterprise Edition available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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

SQLServer Flex @ STACKIT offers a managed version of SQL Server with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

Implementation language

Java, C++, .Net

C++, Java, .Net

C++

C#, .NET, .NET Core, Java

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Linux

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

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free

schema-free and schema-optional

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are Lists, Queues, Hashsets, Dictionary and Counter

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.

XML can be used for describing objects metadata

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-99 for query and DML statements

ANSI-99 for query and DML statements, subset of DDL

yes

SQL-like query syntax and LINQ for searching the cache. Cache Synchronization with SQL Server using SQL dependency.

APIs and other access methods

GigaSpaces LRMI
Hibernate
JCache
JDBC
JPA
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data

HDFS API
Hibernate
JCache
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

IDistributedCache
JCache
LINQ
Proprietary native API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Supported programming languages

.Net
C++
Java
Python
Scala

C#
C++
Java
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net
.Net Core
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

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

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

yes (compute grid and cache interceptors can be used instead)

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

support for stored procedures with SQL-Server CLR

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

yes, event driven architecture

yes (cache interceptors and events)

yes

Notifications

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

yes

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

synchronous or asynchronous
Source-replica replication

synchronous or asynchronous

yes (replicated cache)

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes, with selectable consistency level

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Map-Reduce pattern can be built with XAP task executors

yes (compute grid and hadoop accelerator)

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Consistency level configurable: ALL, QUORUM, ANY

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Strong Eventual Consistency over WAN with Conflict Resolution using Bridge Topology

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

optimistic locking and pessimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

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

Role-based access control

Security Hooks for custom implementations

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Authentication to access the cache via Active Directory/LDAP (possible roles: user, administrator)

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

NCache has been the market leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005 . NCache...
» more

Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more

Competitive advantages

NCache is 100% .NET/ .NET Core based which fully supports ASP.NET Core Sessions ,...
» more

Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more

Typical application scenarios

NCache enables industries like retail, finance, banking IoT, travel, ecommerce, healthcare...
» more

Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more

Key customers

Bank of America, Citi, Natures Way, Charter Spectrum, Barclays, Henry Schein, GBM,...
» more

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

Market metrics

Market Leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005.
» more

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

Licensing and pricing models

NCache Open Source is free on an as-is basis without any support. NCache Enterprise...
» more

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

News

How to Configure Neo4j Aura With AWS PrivateLink
21 May 2024

This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, GraphRAG, GraphQL, Chatbot and more
18 May 2024

Neo4j Joins the Connect with Confluent Partner Program
16 May 2024

10 Inspiring Projects to Spark Your NODES 2024 Presentation
15 May 2024

New Security Feature in Neo4j Aura: Customer Managed Keys
15 May 2024

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.