DBMS > Neo4j vs. OpenSearch vs. Realm

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. OpenSearch vs. Realm

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

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

A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine forked from Elasticsearch and based on Apache Lucene

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

Primary database model

Graph DBMS

Search engine

Document store

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

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

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	16.36
Rank	#37	Overall
	#4	Search engines

Score	7.60
Rank	#52	Overall
	#9	Document stores

Website

neo4j.com

github.com/opensearch-project
opensearch.org

realm.io

Technical documentation

neo4j.com/docs

opensearch.org/docs/latest

realm.io/docs

Developer

Neo4j, Inc.

Amazon Web Services

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Initial release

2007

2021

2014

Current release

5.19, April 2024

2.5.0, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Apache Version 2.0

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.

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

Aiven for OpenSearch: Fully managed open source search and analytics suite. Out-of-the-box integrations get you up and running in a couple of clicks.

Implementation language

Java, Scala

Java

Server operating systems

Linux

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

All OS with a Java VM

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

Flexible type definitions. Once a type is defined, it is persistent

yes

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.

Secondary indexes

yes

pluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucene

yes

All search fields are automatically indexed

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language

APIs and other access methods

Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM

Object Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3

Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

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

Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

Elasticsearch client

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

yes

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

by using the 'percolation' feature

yes

Change Listeners

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

yes

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

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

Eventual Consistency

Synchronous doc based replication. Get by ID may show delays up to 1 sec. Configurable write consistency: one, quorum, all

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

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

In-Memory realm

User concepts

Access control

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

yes

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

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

OpenSearch is a highly scalable and extensible open-source software suite for search,...
» more

Competitive advantages

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

Distributed as fully open source under Apache License, Version 2.0 (ALv2), OpenSearch...
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Typical application scenarios

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

The OpenSearch platform is used across a broad range of search , analytics, and observability...
» 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

The OpenSearch Project offers open source software licensed under Apache License...
» more

News

Creating the GQL Database Language Standard
7 May 2024

This Week in Neo4j: GraphRAG, Knowledge Graphs, Open Source AI, GraphQL and more
4 May 2024

This Week in Neo4j: Nodes 2024, Data Modelling, Events, Knowledge Graphs and more
27 April 2024

GQL is Here: Your Cypher Queries in a GQL World
26 April 2024

GQL: The ISO Standard for Graphs Has Arrived
25 April 2024

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