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DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. Sphinx vs. Sqrrl

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. Sphinx vs. Sqrrl

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonSqrrl  Xexclude from comparison
Sqrrl has been acquired by Amazon and became a part of Amazon Web Services. It has been removed from the DB-Engines ranking.
DescriptionMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesAdaptable, secure NoSQL built on Apache Accumulo
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSSearch engineDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score829.80
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score44.47
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score6.03
Rank#60  Overall
#6  Search engines
Websitewww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.comsphinxsearch.comsqrrl.com
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.Sphinx Technologies Inc.Amazon infooriginally Sqrrl Data, Inc.
Initial release1989200720012012
Current releaseSQL Server 2022, November 20225.19, April 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availablecommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenononono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.
Implementation languageC++Java, ScalaC++Java
Server operating systemsLinux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalyesschema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesnoyes
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.yes
Secondary indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes infofull-text index on all search fieldsyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesnoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)no
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
Proprietary protocolAccumulo Shell
Java API
JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift
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++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Actionscript
C infousing GLib
C#
C++
Cocoa
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsnono
Triggersyesyes infovia event handlernono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodestables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j FabricSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedSharding infomaking use of Hadoop
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 onlynoneselectable replication factor infomaking use of Hadoop
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnononoyes
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
Immediate Consistency infoDocument store kept consistent with combination of global timestamping, row-level transactions, and server-side consistency resolution.
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoRelationships in graphsnono
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDnoAtomic updates per row, document, or graph entity
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes
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)noCell-level Security, Data-Centric Security, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft SQL ServerNeo4jSphinxSqrrl
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
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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More resources
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