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DBMS > Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFully managed big data interactive analytics platformMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infocolumn orientedRelational DBMSGraph DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store infoIf a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-types/­dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store infothis is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine infosupport for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorer/­time-series-analysis
Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score4.38
Rank#77  Overall
#41  Relational DBMS
Score824.29
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Websiteazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorerwww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.com
Technical documentationdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorerlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docs
DeveloperMicrosoftMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release201919892007
Current releasecloud service with continuous releasesSQL Server 2022, November 20225.19, April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesnono
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++Java, Scala
Server operating systemshostedLinux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)yesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyes infobool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-typesyesyes
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.yesyes
Secondary indexesall fields are automatically indexedyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLKusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subsetyesno
APIs and other access methodsMicrosoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Supported programming languages.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
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
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresYes, possible languages: KQL, Python, RTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicyyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud servicetables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j Fabric
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes infoImplicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.yes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version only
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsSpark connector (open source): github.com/­Azure/­azure-kusto-sparknono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of datanoACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAzure Active Directory Authenticationfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft Azure Data ExplorerMicrosoft SQL ServerNeo4j
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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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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