DBMS > Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. TypeDB vs. VoltDB

System Properties Comparison Kdb vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. TypeDB vs. VoltDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

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

TypeDB is a strongly-typed database with a rich and logical type system and TypeQL as its query language

Distributed In-Memory NewSQL RDBMS

Used for OLTP applications with a high frequency of relatively simple transactions, that can hold all their data in memory

Primary database model

Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Graph DBMS
Relational DBMS

Often described as a 'hyper-relational' database, since it implements the 'Entity-Relationship Paradigm' to manage complex data structures and ontologies.

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Relational DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	7.71
Rank	#49	Overall
	#2	Time Series DBMS
	#1	Vector DBMS

Score	821.56
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	44.89
Rank	#21	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	0.70
Rank	#230	Overall
	#20	Graph DBMS
	#106	Relational DBMS

Score	1.47
Rank	#157	Overall
	#73	Relational DBMS

Website

kx.com

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

neo4j.com

typedb.com

www.voltdb.com

Technical documentation

code.kx.com

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

neo4j.com/docs

typedb.com/docs

docs.voltdb.com

Developer

Kx Systems, a division of First Derivatives plc

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

Vaticle

VoltDB Inc.

Initial release

2000

kdb was released 2000, kdb+ in 2003

1989

2007

2016

2010

Current release

3.6, May 2018

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.20, May 2024

2.26.3, January 2024

11.3, April 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free 32-bit version

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

GPL Version 3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

AGPL for Community Edition, commercial license for Enterprise, AWS, and Pro Editions

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

C++

Java, Scala

Java

Java, C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Windows

Linux

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

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X

for development

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

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.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

table attribute 'grouped'

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language (q)

yes

only a subset of SQL 99

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API
JDBC
Jupyter
Kafka
ODBC
WebSocket

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

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

gRPC protocol
TypeDB Console (shell)
TypeDB Studio (Visualisation software- previously TypeDB Workbase)

Java API
JDBC
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Go
J
Java
JavaScript
Lua
MatLab
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Scala

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

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

All JVM based languages
Groovy
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

C#
C++
Erlang

not officially supported
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

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

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Java

Triggers

yes

with views

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning

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

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

by using Cassandra

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Source-replica replication

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication

by using Cassandra

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

similar paradigm used for internal processing

yes

by using Apache Kafka and Apache Zookeeper

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

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

substituted by the relationship feature

FOREIGN KEY constraints are not supported

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Transactions are executed single-threaded within stored procedures

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Snapshots and command logging

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

rights management via user accounts

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

yes

at REST API level; other APIs in progress

Users and roles with access to stored procedures

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Integrated columnar database & programming system for streaming, real time and historical...
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Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
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TypeDB is a polymorphic database with a conceptual data model, a strong subtyping...
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Competitive advantages

provides seamless scalability; runs on industry standard server platforms; is top-ranked...
» more

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

TypeDB provides a new level of expressivity, extensibility, interoperability, and...
» more

Typical application scenarios

tick database streaming sensor data massive intelligence applications oil and gas...
» more

Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Life sciences : TypeDB makes working with biological data much easier and accelerates...
» more

Key customers

Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch J.P. Morgan Deutsche Bank IEX Securities...
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Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metrics

kdb+ performance and reliability proven by our customers in critical infrastructure...
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Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing models

upon request
» more

GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
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Apache f or language drivers, and AGPL and Commercial for the database server. The...
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News

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4 June 2024

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4 June 2024

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

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