DBMS > Informix vs. Neo4j vs. OpenSearch vs. OrientDB vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. Neo4j vs. OpenSearch vs. OrientDB vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine forked from Elasticsearch and based on Apache Lucene

Multi-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Graph DBMS

Search engine

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Vector DBMS

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

Score	17.12
Rank	#34	Overall
	#21	Relational DBMS

Score	44.89
Rank	#21	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	16.03
Rank	#37	Overall
	#4	Search engines

Score	3.25
Rank	#89	Overall
	#16	Document stores
	#6	Graph DBMS
	#13	Key-value stores

Score	1.52
Rank	#153	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/informix

neo4j.com

github.com/opensearch-project
opensearch.org

orientdb.org

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

neo4j.com/docs

opensearch.org/docs/latest

www.orientdb.com/docs/last/index.html

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Neo4j, Inc.

Amazon Web Services

OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAP

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

1984

2007

2021

2010

2019

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

5.20, May 2024

2.5.0, January 2023

3.2.29, March 2024

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

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.

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

Aiven for OpenSearch: Fully managed open source search and analytics suite. Out-of-the-box integrations get you up and running in a couple of clicks.
STACKIT OpenSearch offers OpenSearch in a managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant, for a wide range of applications like analytics, website search, offering scalability and fast data access.

Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

Java, Scala

Java

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux

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

All OS with a Java VM

All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

Flexible type definitions. Once a type is defined, it is persistent

schema-free

Schema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

All search fields are automatically indexed

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query language

SQL-like query language, no joins

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Elasticsearch client

.Net
C
C#
C++
Clojure
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes

Java, Javascript

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

by using the 'percolation' feature

Hooks

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

yes

Multi-source replication

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

could be achieved with distributed queries

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

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

Eventual Consistency

Synchronous doc based replication. Get by ID may show delays up to 1 sec. Configurable write consistency: one, quorum, all

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

relationship in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

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

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

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

Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurable

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

OpenSearch is a highly scalable and extensible open-source software suite for search,...
» more

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
» more

Competitive advantages

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

Distributed as fully open source under Apache License, Version 2.0 (ALv2), OpenSearch...
» more

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
» more

Typical application scenarios

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

The OpenSearch platform is used across a broad range of search , analytics, and observability...
» more

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
» more

Key customers

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

All companies that have data.
» more

Market metrics

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

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

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

The OpenSearch Project offers open source software licensed under Apache License...
» more

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
» more

News

This Week in Neo4j: Importing Data, NODES, GenAI, Going Meta and more
1 June 2024

openCypher Will Pave the Road to GQL for Cypher Implementers
22 May 2024

7 Tips for Submitting Your NODES 2024 Talk
22 May 2024

How to Configure Neo4j Aura With AWS PrivateLink
21 May 2024

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