DBMS > GraphDB vs. HEAVY.AI vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. Virtuoso
System Properties Comparison GraphDB vs. HEAVY.AI vs. Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. Virtuoso
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| Name | GraphDB  former name: OWLIM Xexclude from comparison | HEAVY.AI Formerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022 Xexclude from comparison | Neo4j Xexclude from comparison | PostgreSQL Xexclude from comparison | Virtuoso Xexclude from comparison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description | Enterprise-ready RDF and graph database with efficient reasoning, cluster and external index synchronization support. It supports also SQL JDBC access to Knowledge Graph and GraphQL over SPARQL. | A high performance, column-oriented RDBMS, specifically developed to harness the massive parallelism of modern CPU and GPU hardware | Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings | Widely used open source RDBMS Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL | Virtuoso is a multi-model hybrid-RDBMS that supports management of data represented as relational tables and/or property graphs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary database model | Graph DBMS RDF store | Relational DBMS | Graph DBMS | Relational DBMS with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module. | Document store Graph DBMS Native XML DBMS Relational DBMS RDF store Search engine | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary database models | Spatial DBMS | Document store Graph DBMS with Apache AgeSpatial DBMS Vector DBMS with pgvector extension | Spatial DBMS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Website | www.ontotext.com | github.com/heavyai/heavydb www.heavy.ai | neo4j.com | www.postgresql.org | virtuoso.openlinksw.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical documentation | graphdb.ontotext.com/documentation | docs.heavy.ai | neo4j.com/docs | www.postgresql.org/docs | docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Social network pages |      | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer | Ontotext | HEAVY.AI, Inc. | Neo4j, Inc. | PostgreSQL Global Development Group www.postgresql.org/developer | OpenLink Software | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Initial release | 2000 | 2016 | 2007 | 1989 1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL | 1998 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current release | 10.4, October 2023 | 5.10, January 2022 | 5.19, April 2024 | 16.2, February 2024 | 7.2.11, September 2023 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| License Commercial or Open Source | commercial Some plugins of GraphDB Workbench are open sourced | Open Source Apache Version 2; enterprise edition available | Open Source GPL version3, commercial licenses available | Open Source BSD | Open Source GPLv2, extended commercial license available | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud-based only Only available as a cloud service | no | no | no | no | no | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Implementation language | Java | C++ and CUDA | Java, Scala | C | C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server operating systems | All OS with a Java VM Linux OS X Windows | Linux | Linux Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database. OS X Solaris Windows | FreeBSD HP-UX Linux NetBSD OpenBSD OS X Solaris Unix Windows | AIX FreeBSD HP-UX Linux OS X Solaris Windows | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data scheme | schema-free and OWL/RDFS-schema support; RDF shapes | yes | schema-free and schema-optional | yes | yes SQL - Standard relational schema RDF - Quad (S, P, O, G) or Triple (S, P, O) XML - DTD, XML Schema DAV - freeform filesystem objects, plus User Defined Types a/k/a Dynamic Extension Type | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typing predefined data types such as float or date | yes | yes | yes | yes | 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. | no | no | yes specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality. | yes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secondary indexes | yes, supports real-time synchronization and indexing in SOLR/Elastic search/Lucene and GeoSPARQL geometry data indexes | no | yes pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SQL Support of SQL | stored SPARQL accessed as SQL using Apache Calcite through JDBC/ODBC | yes | no | yes standard with numerous extensions | yes SQL-92, SQL-200x, SQL-3, SQLX | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| APIs and other access methods | GeoSPARQL GraphQL GraphQL Federation Java API JDBC RDF4J API RDFS RIO Sail API Sesame REST HTTP Protocol SPARQL 1.1 | JDBC ODBC Thrift Vega | Bolt protocol Cypher query language Java API Neo4j-OGM Object Graph MapperRESTful HTTP API Spring Data Neo4j TinkerPop 3 | ADO.NET JDBC native C library ODBC streaming API for large objects | ADO.NET GeoSPARQL HTTP API JDBC Jena RDF API ODBC OLE DB RDF4J API RESTful HTTP API Sesame REST HTTP Protocol SOAP webservices SPARQL 1.1 WebDAV XPath XQuery XSLT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supported programming languages | .Net C# Clojure Java JavaScript (Node.js) PHP Python Ruby Scala | All languages supporting JDBC/ODBC/Thrift Python | .Net Clojure Elixir Go Groovy Haskell Java JavaScript Perl PHP Python Ruby Scala | .Net C C++ Delphi Java JDBCJavaScript (Node.js) Perl PHP Python Tcl | .Net C C# C++ Java JavaScript Perl PHP Python Ruby Visual Basic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Server-side scripts Stored procedures | well-defined plugin interfaces; JavaScript server-side extensibility | no | yes User defined Procedures and Functions | user defined functions realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc. | yes Virtuoso PL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Triggers | no | no | yes via event handler | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Partitioning methods Methods for storing different data on different nodes | none | Sharding Round robin | yes using Neo4j Fabric | partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Replication methods Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes | Multi-source replication | Multi-source replication | Causal Clustering using Raft protocol available in in Enterprise Version only | Source-replica replication other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions | Chain, star, and bi-directional replication Multi-source replication Source-replica replication | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MapReduce Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods | no | no | no | no | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consistency concepts Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system | Immediate Consistency, Eventual consistency (configurable in cluster mode per master or individual client request) | Immediate Consistency | Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode | Immediate Consistency | Immediate Consistency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Foreign keys Referential integrity | yes Constraint checking | no | yes Relationships in graphs | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transaction concepts Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data | ACID | no | ACID | ACID | ACID | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Concurrency Support for concurrent manipulation of data | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Durability Support for making data persistent | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-memory capabilities Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only. | yes | no | yes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User concepts Access control | Default Basic authentication through RDF4J client, or via Java when run with cURL, default token-based in the Workbench or via Rest API, optional access through OpenID or Kerberos single sign-on. | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos) | fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard | Fine-grained Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) in addition to typical coarse-grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) according to SQL-standard. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More information provided by the system vendor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GraphDB former name: OWLIM | HEAVY.AI Formerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022 | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | Virtuoso | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Specific characteristics | Ontotext GraphDB is a semantic database engine that allows organizations to build... » more | Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale... » more | Virtuoso is a modern multi-model RDBMS for managing data represented as tabular relations... » more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Competitive advantages | GraphDB allows you to link text and data in big knowledge graphs. It’s easy to experiment... » more | Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely... » more | Performance & Scale — as exemplified by DBpedia and the LOD Cloud it spawned, i.e.,... » more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Typical application scenarios | Metadata enrichment and management, linked data publishing, semantic inferencing... » more | Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network... » more | Used for — Analytics/BI Conceptual Data Virtualization Enterprise Knowledge Graphs... » more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Key customers | GraphDB provides a platform for building next-generation AI and Knowledge Graph... » more | Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers... » more | Broad use across enterprises and governments including — European Union (EU) US Government... » more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Market metrics | GraphDB is the most utilized semantic triplestore for mission-critical enterprise... » more | Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million... » more | Largest installed-base of Multi-Model RDBMS for AI-friendly Knowledge Graphs Platform... » more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Licensing and pricing models | GraphDB Free is a non-commercial version and is free to use. GraphDB Enterprise edition... » more | GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial... » more | Available in both Commercial Enterprise and Open Source (GPL v2) Editions Feature... » more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| News | Scaling Understanding with the Help of Feedback Loops, Knowledge Graphs and NLP How Knowledge Graphs Power Data Mesh and Data Fabric Building Smarter Financial Services: The Role of Semantic Technologies, Knowledge Graphs and Generative AI Using GraphDB’s Natural Language Interface to Talk with Your Content Choosing A Graph Data Model to Best Serve Your Use Case | What Is Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)? This Week in Neo4j: Google Cloud, Analysis, Knowledge Graph, Relationships and more Announcing NODES 2024: Submit Your Talk ISO GQL: A Defining Moment in the History of Database Innovation This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, RAG, Neo4j Guide, ERP and more | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| More resources | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GraphDB former name: OWLIM | HEAVY.AI Formerly named 'OmniSci', rebranded to 'HEAVY.AI' in March 2022 | Neo4j | PostgreSQL | Virtuoso | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DB-Engines blog posts | Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs | PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023 Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Conferences, events and webinars | Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recent citations in the news | Ontotext's GraphDB Solution is Now Available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace Ontotext Unveils GraphDB 10.4 with Enhanced AWS Integration and ChatGPT Connector Ontotext GraphDB is available on Azure, delivers rich knowledge graph experience Ontotext Platform 3.0 for Enterprise Knowledge Graphs Released Ontotext's GraphDB 8.10 Makes Knowledge Graph Experience Faster and Richer provided by Google News | Big Data Analytics: A Game Changer for Infrastructure HEAVY.AI Launches HEAVY 7.0, Introducing Real-Time Machine Learning Capabilities Making the most of geospatial intelligence HEAVY.AI Partners with Bain, Maxar, and Nvidia to Provide Digital Twins for Telecom Networks The insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List for Q4 2023 provided by Google News | Neo4j Is Planning IPO on Nasdaq, Largest Owner Greenbridge Says Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance GenAI and Data Solutions USA - English Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure Neo4j, Microsoft add graph features to Azure AI services Leveraging Neo4j and Amazon Bedrock for an Explainable, Secure, and Connected Generative AI Solution | Amazon ... provided by Google News | Introducing OCI Database with PostgreSQL: Completing Our Cloud Database Suite for Every Need Handle tables without primary keys while creating Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL zero-ETL integrations with Amazon ... PeerDB raises $3.6M to accelerate PostgreSQL data movement Did One Guy Just Stop a Huge Cyberattack? General availability: Microsoft Entra ID integration with Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL | Azure updates provided by Google News | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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