DBMS > Neo4j vs. OrientDB vs. PouchDB vs. Redis vs. RethinkDB

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. OrientDB vs. PouchDB vs. Redis vs. RethinkDB

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

Multi-model DBMS (Document, Graph, Key/Value)

JavaScript DBMS with an API inspired by CouchDB

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

DBMS for the Web with a mechanism to push updated query results to applications in realtime.

Primary database model

Graph DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store

Document store

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Document store

Secondary database models

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	44.46
Rank	#23	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	3.19
Rank	#93	Overall
	#16	Document stores
	#7	Graph DBMS
	#14	Key-value stores

Score	2.28
Rank	#115	Overall
	#21	Document stores

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	2.74
Rank	#105	Overall
	#19	Document stores

Website

Technical documentation

neo4j.com/docs

www.orientdb.com/docs/last/index.html

pouchdb.com/guides

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

rethinkdb.com/docs

Developer

Neo4j, Inc.

OrientDB LTD; CallidusCloud; SAP

Apache Software Foundation

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

The Linux Foundation

since July 2017

Initial release

2007

2010

2012

2009

Current release

5.19, April 2024

3.2.29, March 2024

7.1.1, June 2019

7.2.4, January 2024

2.4.1, August 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

Open Source

Apache Version 2

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 Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

Java, Scala

Java

JavaScript

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

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

All OS with a Java JDK (>= JDK 6)

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free and schema-optional

schema-free

Schema can be enforced for whole record ("schema-full") or for some fields only ("schema-hybrid")

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

yes

string, binary, float, bool, date, geometry

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

via views

yes

with RediSearch module

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL-like query language, no joins

with RediSQL module

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

Tinkerpop technology stack with Blueprints, Gremlin, Pipes
Java API
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

HTTP REST

only for PouchDB Server
JavaScript API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

Supported programming languages

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

.Net
C
C#
C++
Clojure
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

JavaScript

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

community-supported driver
C#

community-supported driver
C++

community-supported driver
Clojure

community-supported driver
Dart

community-supported driver
Erlang

community-supported driver
Go

community-supported driver
Haskell

community-supported driver
Java

official driver
JavaScript (Node.js)

official driver
Lisp

community-supported driver
Lua

community-supported driver
Objective-C

community-supported driver
Perl

community-supported driver
PHP

community-supported driver
Python

official driver
Ruby

official driver
Scala

community-supported driver

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

User defined Procedures and Functions

Java, Javascript

View functions in JavaScript

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

via event handler

Hooks

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Client-side triggers through changefeeds

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes using Neo4j Fabric

Sharding

with a proxy-based framework, named couchdb-lounge

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

Sharding

range based

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

Multi-source replication

also with CouchDB databases
Source-replica replication

also with CouchDB databases

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

could be achieved with distributed queries

yes

through RedisGears

yes

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

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

yes

relationship in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Atomic single-document operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

MVCC based

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, WebSQL or LevelDB as backend

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

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

Access rights for users and roles; record level security configurable

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

yes

users and table-level permissions

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

Neo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
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Competitive advantages

Neo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
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Typical application scenarios

Real-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
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Key customers

Over 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
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Market metrics

Neo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
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Licensing and pricing models

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