DBMS > MySQL vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

System Properties Comparison MySQL vs. Neo4j vs. SurrealDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Widely used open source RDBMS

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

A fully ACID transactional, developer-friendly, multi-model DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Graph DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS

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

Score	1087.72
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	44.47
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	0.91
Rank	#204	Overall
	#33	Document stores
	#18	Graph DBMS

Website

www.mysql.com

neo4j.com

surrealdb.com

Technical documentation

dev.mysql.com/doc

neo4j.com/docs

surrealdb.com/docs

Developer

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

Neo4j, Inc.

SurrealDB Ltd

Initial release

1995

2007

2022

Current release

8.3.0, January 2024

5.19, April 2024

v1.1.1, January 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

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.

Aiven for MySQL: Fully managed MySQL, deployable in the cloud of your choice, with seamless integrations and lightning-fast setup.

Neo4j Aura: Neo4j’s fully managed cloud service: The zero-admin, always-on graph database for cloud developers.

Implementation language

C and C++

Java, Scala

Rust

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux

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

Linux
macOS
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

GraphQL
RESTful HTTP API
WebSocket

Supported programming languages

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

Deno
Go
JavaScript (Node.js)
Rust

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

proprietary syntax

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Triggers

yes

via event handler

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

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

yes, based on authentication and database rules

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

Competitive advantages

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

Typical application scenarios

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

Key customers

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

Market metrics

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

Licensing and pricing models

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

News

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20 April 2024

Announcing NODES 2024: Submit Your Talk
17 April 2024

ISO GQL: A Defining Moment in the History of Database Innovation
17 April 2024

This Week in Neo4j: Podcast, RAG, Neo4j Guide, ERP and more
13 April 2024

Neo4j Brings GraphRAG Capabilities for GenAI to Google Cloud
9 April 2024

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.