DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. SingleStore vs. Tarantool

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. SingleStore vs. Tarantool

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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

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

In-memory computing platform with a flexible data schema for efficiently building high-performance applications

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Graph DBMS

Relational DBMS

Document store
Key-value store
Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS
Vector DBMS

Spatial DBMS

with Tarantool/GIS extension

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	5.60
Rank	#62	Overall
	#35	Relational DBMS

Score	1.72
Rank	#144	Overall
	#25	Document stores
	#25	Key-value stores
	#66	Relational DBMS

Website

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

neo4j.com

www.singlestore.com

www.tarantool.io

Technical documentation

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

neo4j.com/docs

docs.singlestore.com

www.tarantool.io/en/doc

Developer

Microsoft

Neo4j, Inc.

SingleStore Inc.

Initial release

1989

2007

2013

2008

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.20, May 2024

8.5, January 2024

2.10.0, May 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

BSD-2, source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Tarantool Enterprise

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

C++, Go

C and C++

Server operating systems

Linux
Windows

Linux

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

Linux

64 bit version required

BSD
Linux
macOS

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

Flexible data schema: relational definition for tables with ability to store json-like documents in columns

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, double, decimal, uuid, integer, blob, boolean, datetime

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

but no triggers and foreign keys

Full-featured ANSI SQL support

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

Cluster Management API

as HTTP Rest and CLI
HTTP API
JDBC
MongoDB API
ODBC

Open binary protocol

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

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

C
C#
C++
Erlang
Go
Java
JavaScript
Lua
Perl
PHP
Python
Rust

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

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

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes

Lua, C and SQL stored procedures

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes, before/after data modification events, on replication events, client session events

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

hash partitioning

Sharding, partitioned with virtual buckets by user defined affinity key. Live resharding for scale up and scale down without maintenance downtime.

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

Source-replica replication

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

Asynchronous replication with multi-master option
Configurable replication topology (full-mesh, chain, star)
Synchronous quorum replication (with Raft)

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

Immediate Consistency

Casual consistency across sharding partitions
Eventual consistency within replicaset partition

when using asyncronous replication
Immediate Consistency within single instance
Sequential consistency including linearizable read within replicaset partition

when using Raft

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

ACID, with serializable isolation and linearizable read (within partition); Configurable MVCC (within partition); No cross-shard distributed transactions

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

yes, cooperative multitasking

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.

yes, write ahead logging

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

yes, full featured in-memory storage engine with persistence

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)

Fine grained access control via users, groups and roles

Access Control Lists
Mutual TLS authentication for Tarantol Enterprise
Password based authentication
Role-based access control (RBAC) and LDAP for Tarantol Enterprise
Users 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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16 May 2024

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