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DBMS > Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSurrealDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFully managed big data interactive analytics platformScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsA fully ACID transactional, developer-friendly, multi-model DBMS
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infocolumn orientedGraph DBMSDocument store
Graph 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
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score3.00
Rank#86  Overall
#47  Relational DBMS
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score1.08
Rank#176  Overall
#30  Document stores
#16  Graph DBMS
Websiteazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorerneo4j.comsurrealdb.com
Technical documentationdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorerneo4j.com/­docssurrealdb.com/­docs
DeveloperMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.SurrealDB Ltd
Initial release201920072022
Current releasecloud service with continuous releases5.23, August 2024v1.5.0, May 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourcecommercialOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source
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.
Implementation languageJava, ScalaRust
Server operating systemshostedLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
macOS
Windows
Data schemeFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)schema-free and schema-optionalschema-free
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.yes
Secondary indexesall fields are automatically indexedyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene
SQL infoSupport of SQLKusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subsetnoSQL-like query language
APIs and other access methodsMicrosoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
GraphQL
RESTful HTTP API
WebSocket
Supported programming languages.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Deno
Go
JavaScript (Node.js)
Rust
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresYes, possible languages: KQL, Python, Ryes infoUser defined Procedures and Functions
Triggersyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicyyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyes 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.Causal 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
Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyes 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.no
User concepts infoAccess controlAzure Active Directory AuthenticationUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)yes, based on authentication and database rules
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft Azure Data ExplorerNeo4jSurrealDB
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More resources
Microsoft Azure Data ExplorerNeo4jSurrealDB
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Recent citations in the news

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14 February 2025, Microsoft

Log and Telemetry Analytics Performance Benchmark
16 August 2022, Gigaom

Azure Data Explorer: Log and telemetry analytics benchmark
16 August 2022, Microsoft Azure

Azure Data Explorer Supports Native Ingestion from Amazon S3
7 September 2022, infoq.com

Azure Data Explorer gets new engine, numerous enhancements and Synapse integration
14 October 2020, ZDNET

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NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
7 May 2025, theregister.com

Neo4j goes serverless, bringing graph analytics to any data source
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Latest Neo4j release aims to simplify graph technology
7 May 2025, TechTarget

Neo4j Launches Industry's First Graph Analytics Offering For Any Data Platform
7 May 2025, PR Newswire

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7 December 2024, insideAI News

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15 October 2024, Business Wire

SurrealDB's Surreal Cloud debuts on AWS S3 for scalable multimodel database as a service
4 December 2024, siliconangle.com

SurrealDB is helping developers consolidate their databases
18 June 2024, TechCrunch

London-based SurrealDB secures over €18.6 million aiming to disrupt database technology
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