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DBMS > Informix vs. Neo4j vs. OrientDB vs. RDFox vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. Neo4j vs. OrientDB vs. RDFox vs. Sphinx

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameInformix  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonOrientDB  Xexclude from comparisonRDFox  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionA secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things dataScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsMulti-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)High performance knowledge graph and semantic reasoning engineOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDBGraph DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Graph DBMS
RDF store
Search engine
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS infowith Informix TimeSeries Extension
Relational DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score17.12
Rank#34  Overall
#21  Relational DBMS
Score44.89
Rank#21  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score3.25
Rank#89  Overall
#16  Document stores
#6  Graph DBMS
#13  Key-value stores
Score0.29
Rank#300  Overall
#24  Graph DBMS
#13  RDF stores
Score5.95
Rank#55  Overall
#5  Search engines
Websitewww.ibm.com/­products/­informixneo4j.comorientdb.orgwww.oxfordsemantic.techsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationinformix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/­support/­knowledgecenter/­SSGU8G/­welcomeIfxServers.html
neo4j.com/­docswww.orientdb.com/­docs/­last/­index.htmldocs.oxfordsemantic.techsphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperIBM, HCL Technologies infoEffective 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.OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAPOxford Semantic TechnologiesSphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release19842007201020172001
Current release14.10.FC5, November 20205.20, May 20243.2.29, March 20246.0, Septermber 20223.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infofree developer edition availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoApache version 2commercialOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonononono
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, C++ and JavaJava, ScalaJavaC++C++
Server operating systemsAIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)Linux
macOS
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalschema-free infoSchema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")yes infoRDF schemasyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyes infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypesyesyesyesno
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 indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesnoSQL-like query language, no joinsnoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
JSON API infoMongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API
RESTful HTTP API
SPARQL 1.1
Proprietary protocol
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
.Net
C
C#
C++
Clojure
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C
Java
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyesyes infoUser defined Procedures and FunctionsJava, Javascriptno
Triggersyesyes infovia event handlerHooksno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingyes using Neo4j FabricShardingSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlyMulti-source replicationreplication via a shared file systemnone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonono infocould be achieved with distributed queriesno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode, Eventual Consistency in replicated setups
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoRelationships in graphsyes inforelationship in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACIDACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyesyes 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.yesyes
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controlsUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurableRoles, resources, and access typesno
More information provided by the system vendor
InformixNeo4jOrientDBRDFoxSphinx
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» 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
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