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

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

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Scalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offerings

A multi-model, scalable, distributed NoSQL database, designed to provide highly reliable, flexible, and available data management across a configurable set of storage nodes

Distributed, fault tolerant key-value store

MySQL wire-compliant distributed RDBMS that combines an in-memory row-oriented and a disc-based column-oriented storage with patented universal storage to handle transactional and analytical workloads in one single table type

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Document store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Key-value store

with links between data sets and object tags for the creation of secondary indexes

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	2.95
Rank	#100	Overall
	#17	Document stores
	#17	Key-value stores
	#50	Relational DBMS

Score	4.10
Rank	#82	Overall
	#9	Key-value stores

Score	5.60
Rank	#62	Overall
	#35	Relational DBMS

Website

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

neo4j.com

www.oracle.com/database/nosql/technologies/nosql

www.singlestore.com

Technical documentation

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

neo4j.com/docs

docs.oracle.com/en/database/other-databases/nosql-database/index.html

www.tiot.jp/riak-docs/riak/kv/latest

docs.singlestore.com

Developer

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

Oracle

OpenSource, formerly Basho Technologies

SingleStore Inc.

Initial release

1989

2007

2011

2009

2013

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.19, April 2024

23.3, December 2023

3.2.0, December 2022

8.5, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Proprietary for Enterprise Edition (Oracle Database EE license has Oracle NoSQL database EE covered: details)

Open Source

Apache version 2, commercial enterprise edition

commercial

free developer edition available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database 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.

SingleStoreDB Cloud: The world's fastest, modern cloud database for both operational (OLTP) and analytical (OLAP) workloads. Available instantly with multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud capabilities

Implementation language

C++

Java, Scala

Java

Erlang

C++, Go

Server operating systems

Linux
Windows

Linux

Can also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Solaris SPARC/x86

Linux
OS X

Linux

64 bit version required

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

Support Fixed schema and Schema-less deployment with the ability to interoperate between them.

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

optional

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

restricted

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

yes

but no triggers and foreign keys

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

RESTful HTTP API

HTTP API
Native Erlang Interface

Cluster Management API

as HTTP Rest and CLI
HTTP API
JDBC
MongoDB API
ODBC

Supported programming languages

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

C
C#
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

unofficial client library
C#
C++

unofficial client library
Clojure

unofficial client library
Dart

unofficial client library
Erlang
Go

unofficial client library
Groovy

unofficial client library
Haskell

unofficial client library
Java
JavaScript

unofficial client library
Lisp

unofficial client library
Perl

unofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

unofficial client library
Smalltalk

unofficial client library

Bash
C
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Erlang

yes

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

pre-commit hooks and post-commit hooks

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

no "single point of failure"

Sharding

hash partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Electable source-replica replication per shard. Support distributed global deployment with Multi-region table feature

selectable replication factor

Source-replica replication

stores two copies of each physical data partition on two separate nodes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

with Hadoop integration

yes

can define user-defined aggregate functions for map-reduce-style calculations

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Causal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

depending on configuration

Eventual Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

links between data sets can be stored

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

configurable

ACID within a storage node (=shard)

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

All updates are persistent, including those to disk-based columnstores and memory-based row stores. Transaction commits are supported via write-ahead log.

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

off heap cache

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Users, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)

Access rights for users and roles

yes, using Riak Security

Fine grained access control via users, groups and roles

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more

SingleStore offers a fully-managed , distributed, highly-scalable SQL database designed...
» more

Competitive advantages

Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more

SingleStore’s competitive advantages include: Easy and Simplified Architecture with...
» more

Typical application scenarios

Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more

Driving Fast Analytics: SingleStore delivers the fastest and most scalable reporting...
» more

Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more

IEX Cloud : Improves Financial Data Distribution Speed 15x with Singlestore DB Comcast,...
» more

Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more

Customers in various industries worldwide including US and International Industry...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

GPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more

F ree Tier and Enterprise Edition
» more

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