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DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j vs. SQLite

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. MongoDB vs. Neo4j vs. SQLite

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonMongoDB  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSQLite  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSOne of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructureScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsWidely used embeddable, in-process RDBMS
Primary database modelRelational DBMSDocument storeGraph DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Search engine infointegrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS infoTime Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS infocurrently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score824.29
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score421.65
Rank#5  Overall
#1  Document stores
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score114.32
Rank#10  Overall
#7  Relational DBMS
Websitewww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverwww.mongodb.comneo4j.comwww.sqlite.org
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverwww.mongodb.com/­docs/­manualneo4j.com/­docswww.sqlite.org/­docs.html
DeveloperMicrosoftMongoDB, IncNeo4j, Inc.Dwayne Richard Hipp
Initial release1989200920072000
Current releaseSQL Server 2022, November 20226.0.7, June 20235.19, April 20243.45.3  (15 April 2024), April 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoMongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.Open Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoPublic Domain
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenono infoMongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)nono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC++C++Java, ScalaC
Server operating systemsLinux
Windows
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
server-less
Data schemeyesschema-free infoAlthough schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.schema-free and schema-optionalyes infodynamic column types
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyes infostring, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatialyesyes infonot rigid because of 'dynamic typing' concept.
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.yesno
Secondary indexesyesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesRead-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interfacenoyes infoSQL-92 is not fully supported
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
ADO.NET infoinofficial driver
JDBC infoinofficial driver
ODBC infoinofficial driver
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic
Actionscript infounofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure infounofficial driver
ColdFusion infounofficial driver
D infounofficial driver
Dart infounofficial driver
Delphi infounofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy infounofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp infounofficial driver
Lua infounofficial driver
MatLab infounofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell infounofficial driver
Prolog infounofficial driver
Python
R infounofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk infounofficial driver
Swift
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Actionscript
Ada
Basic
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Forth
Fortran
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) JavaJavaScriptyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersyesyes infoin MongoDB Atlas onlyyes infovia event handleryes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodestables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationSharding infoPartitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.yes using Neo4j Fabricnone
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionMulti-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication
Causal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoyesnono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency infocan be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency infodefault behaviour
Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesno infotypically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possibleyes infoRelationships in graphsyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDMulti-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolationACIDACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes infovia file-system locks
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infooptional, enabled by defaultyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesyes infoIn-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2yes
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardAccess rights for users and rolesUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)no
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft SQL ServerMongoDBNeo4jSQLite
Specific characteristicsMongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
» more
Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
Competitive advantagesBuilt around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
» more
Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
Typical application scenariosAI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
» more
Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
Key customersADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
» more
Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Market metricsHundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
» more
Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsMongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
» more
GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
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