DBMS > Memcached vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. ScyllaDB vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Memcached vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. ScyllaDB vs. Vertica

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

In-memory key-value store, originally intended for caching

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

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

Cassandra and DynamoDB compatible wide column store

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Key-value store

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

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

Score	16.84
Rank	#32	Overall
	#4	Key-value stores

Score	807.76
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	42.68
Rank	#21	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	4.15
Rank	#69	Overall
	#5	Wide column stores

Score	9.62
Rank	#42	Overall
	#26	Relational DBMS

Website

www.memcached.org

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

neo4j.com

www.scylladb.com

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki

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

neo4j.com/docs

docs.scylladb.com

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Danga Interactive

originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournal

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

ScyllaDB

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2003

1989

2007

2015

2005

Current release

1.6.29, June 2024

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.23, August 2024

ScyllaDB Open Source 6.0.2, July 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

BSD license

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Open Source (AGPL), commercial license available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

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.

Scylla Cloud: Create real-time applications that run at global scale with Scylla Cloud, the industry’s most powerful NoSQL DBaaS

Implementation language

C++

Java, Scala

C++

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Linux
Windows

Linux

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

Linux

Data scheme

schema-free

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

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

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

cluster global secondary indices

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements (CQL)

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

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

Proprietary protocol (CQL)

compatible with CQL (Cassandra Query Language, an SQL-like language)
RESTful HTTP API (DynamoDB compatible)
Thrift

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
ColdFusion
Erlang
Java
Lisp
Lua
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby

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

For CQL interface: C#, C++, Clojure, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala
For DynamoDB interface: .Net, ColdFusion, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes, Lua

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

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

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Repcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallity

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

selectable replication factor

Representation of geographical distribution of servers is possible

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Bi-directional Spark integration

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
Tunable Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomicity and isolation are supported for single operations

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

in-memory tables

User concepts

Access control

yes

using SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocol

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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

Access rights for users can be defined per object

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

ScyllaDB is engineered to deliver predictable performance at scale. It’s adopted...
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Competitive advantages

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

Highly-performant (efficiently utilizes full resources of a node and network; millions...
» more

Typical application scenarios

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

ScyllaDB is ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency at...
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Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Discord, Epic Games, Expedia, Zillow, Comcast, Disney+ Hotstar, Samsung, ShareChat,...
» more

Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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ScyllaDB typically offers ~75% total cost of ownership savings, with ~5X higher throughput...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

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

ScyllaDB Open Source - free open source software (AGPL) ScyllaDB Enterprise - subscription-based...
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4 September 2024

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