DBMS > Memcached vs. Neo4j vs. OpenQM vs. RavenDB vs. Redis

System Properties Comparison Memcached vs. Neo4j vs. OpenQM vs. RavenDB vs. Redis

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

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

QpenQM is a high-performance, self-tuning, multi-value DBMS

Open Source Operational and Transactional Enterprise NoSQL Document Database

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Primary database model

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Secondary database models

Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

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

Score	19.42
Rank	#32	Overall
	#4	Key-value stores

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	0.27
Rank	#298	Overall
	#10	Multivalue DBMS

Score	2.92
Rank	#101	Overall
	#18	Document stores

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Website

www.memcached.org

neo4j.com

www.rocketsoftware.com/products/rocket-multivalue-application-development-platform/rocket-open-qm

ravendb.net

redis.com
redis.io

Technical documentation

github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki

neo4j.com/docs

ravendb.net/docs

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

Developer

Danga Interactive

originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick for LiveJournal

Neo4j, Inc.

Rocket Software, originally Martin Phillips

Hibernating Rhinos

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Initial release

2003

2007

1993

2010

2009

Current release

1.6.25, March 2024

5.19, April 2024

3.4-12

5.4, July 2022

7.2.4, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

BSD license

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

GPLv2, extended commercial license available

Open Source

AGPL version 3, commercial license available

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis 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 Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

Java, Scala

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows

Linux

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

AIX
FreeBSD
Linux
macOS
Raspberry Pi
Solaris
Windows

Linux
macOS
Raspberry Pi
Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Data scheme

schema-free

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

with some exceptions

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

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

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language (RQL)

with RediSQL module

APIs and other access methods

Proprietary protocol

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

.NET Client API
F# Client API
Go Client API
Java Client API
NodeJS Client API
PHP Client API
Python Client API
RESTful HTTP API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Supported programming languages

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

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

.Net
Basic
C
Java
Objective C
PHP
Python

.Net
C#
F#
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

yes using Neo4j Fabric

yes

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Repcached, a Memcached patch, provides this functionallity

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

yes

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

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

Immediate Consistency

Default ACID transactions on the local node (eventually consistent across the cluster). Atomic operations with cluster-wide ACID transactions. Eventual consistency for indexes and full-text search indexes.

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

ACID, Cluster-wide transaction available

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

yes

using SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer) protocol

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

Access rights can be defined down to the item level

Authorization levels configured per client per database

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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Typical application scenarios

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Key customers

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Market metrics

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Licensing and pricing models

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