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DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. Oracle NoSQL vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak KV

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. Oracle NoSQL vs. PostgreSQL vs. Riak KV

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonOracle NoSQL  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonRiak KV  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 offeringsA multi-model, scalable, distributed NoSQL database, designed to provide highly reliable, flexible, and available data management across a configurable set of storage nodesWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLDistributed, fault tolerant key-value store
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSDocument store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS
Relational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Key-value store infowith links between data sets and object tags for the creation of secondary indexes
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
Document store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score824.29
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score2.95
Rank#100  Overall
#17  Document stores
#17  Key-value stores
#50  Relational DBMS
Score645.54
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score4.10
Rank#82  Overall
#9  Key-value stores
Websitewww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.comwww.oracle.com/­database/­nosql/­technologies/­nosqlwww.postgresql.org
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docsdocs.oracle.com/­en/­database/­other-databases/­nosql-database/­index.htmlwww.postgresql.org/­docswww.tiot.jp/­riak-docs/­riak/­kv/­latest
DeveloperMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.OraclePostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerOpenSource, formerly Basho Technologies
Initial release1989200720111989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL2009
Current releaseSQL Server 2022, November 20225.19, April 202423.3, December 202316.3, May 20243.2.0, December 2022
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoProprietary for Enterprise Edition (Oracle Database EE license has Oracle NoSQL database EE covered: details)Open Source infoBSDOpen Source infoApache version 2, commercial enterprise edition
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonononono
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.Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
  • PostgreSQL Flex @ STACKIT offers managed PostgreSQL Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed and several extensions available, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All 100% GDPR-compliant.
  • Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
Implementation languageC++Java, ScalaJavaCErlang
Server operating systemsLinux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
Solaris SPARC/x86
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalSupport Fixed schema and Schema-less deployment with the ability to interoperate between them.yesschema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesoptionalyesno
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.yesnoyes infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.no
Secondary indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyesyesrestricted
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesnoSQL-like DML and DDL statementsyes infostandard with numerous extensionsno
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
RESTful HTTP APIADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface
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
C
C#
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
C infounofficial client library
C#
C++ infounofficial client library
Clojure infounofficial client library
Dart infounofficial client library
Erlang
Go infounofficial client library
Groovy infounofficial client library
Haskell infounofficial client library
Java
JavaScript infounofficial client library
Lisp infounofficial client library
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala infounofficial client library
Smalltalk infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsnouser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.Erlang
Triggersyesyes infovia event handlernoyesyes infopre-commit hooks and post-commit hooks
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodestables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j FabricShardingpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashSharding infono "single point of failure"
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 onlyElectable source-replica replication per shard. Support distributed global deployment with Multi-region table featureSource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsselectable replication factor
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonowith Hadoop integrationnoyes
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
Immediate Consistency infodepending on configuration
Immediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoRelationships in graphsnoyesno infolinks between data sets can be stored
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDconfigurable infoACID within a storage node (=shard)ACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesyes infooff heap cacheno
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)Access rights for users and rolesfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardyes, using Riak Security
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft SQL ServerNeo4jOracle NoSQLPostgreSQLRiak KV
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
News

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We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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