DBMS > JanusGraph vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J

System Properties Comparison JanusGraph vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A Graph DBMS optimized for distributed clusters

It was forked from the latest code base of Titan in January 2017

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

RDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.

Primary database model

Graph DBMS

RDF store

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

Score	2.43
Rank	#118	Overall
	#8	Graph DBMS

Score	60.14
Rank	#19	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	0.73
Rank	#204	Overall
	#9	RDF stores

Website

janusgraph.org

neo4j.com

rdf4j.org

Technical documentation

docs.janusgraph.org

neo4j.com/docs

rdf4j.org/documentation

Developer

Linux Foundation; originally developed as Titan by Aurelius

Neo4j, Inc.

Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.

Initial release

2017

2007

2004

Current release

0.6.1, January 2022

4.4.6, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Eclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.

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.

Implementation language

Java

Java, Scala

Java

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Linux

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

Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

RDF Schemas

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

APIs and other access methods

Java API
TinkerPop Blueprints
TinkerPop Frames
TinkerPop Gremlin
TinkerPop Rexster

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Java API
RIO

RDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL

Sesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL

Supported programming languages

Clojure
Java
Python

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

Java
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes

depending on the used storage backend (e.g. Cassandra, HBase, BerkeleyDB)

yes using Neo4j Fabric

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

via Faunus, a graph analytics engine

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Isolation support depends on the API used

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Supports various storage backends: Cassandra, HBase, Berkeley DB, Akiban, Hazelcast

yes

in-memory storage is supported as well

User concepts

Access control

User authentification and security via Rexster Graph Server

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

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Competitive advantages

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing models

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