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DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. NSDb

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. NSDb

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonNSDb  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsScalable, High-performance Time Series DBMS designed for Real-time Analytics on top of Kubernetes
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSTime Series DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score774.89
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score0.00
Rank#385  Overall
#42  Time Series DBMS
Websitewww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.comnsdb.io
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docsnsdb.io/­Architecture
DeveloperMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.
Initial release198920072017
Current releaseSQL Server 2022, November 20225.23, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoApache Version 2.0
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase 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.
Implementation languageC++Java, ScalaJava, Scala
Server operating systemsLinux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
macOS
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optional
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes: int, bigint, decimal, string
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 indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneall fields are automatically indexed
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesnoSQL-like query language
APIs and other access methodsADO.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
gRPC
HTTP REST
WebSocket
Supported programming languagesC#
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
Java
Scala
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsno
Triggersyesyes infovia event handler
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodestables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j FabricSharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes, 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 methodsnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Eventual Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesUsing Apache Lucene
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yes
User concepts infoAccess controlfine 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 SQL ServerNeo4jNSDb
News

Integrating Neo4j With LangChain4j for GraphRAG Vector Stores and Retrievers
12 May 2025

This Week in Neo4j: NODES, Knowledge Graph, Graph Analytics, MCP and more
10 May 2025

Aura Graph Analytics: A Technical Deep Dive
7 May 2025

Introducing Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics: Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy Graph Analytics for Any Data Source
7 May 2025

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5 May 2025

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More resources
Microsoft SQL ServerNeo4jNSDb
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