DB-EnginesExtremeDB for everyone with an RTOSEnglish
Deutsch
Knowledge Base of Relational and NoSQL Database Management Systemsprovided by solid IT

DBMS > Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. Spark SQL vs. Transbase

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. PostgreSQL vs. Spark SQL vs. Transbase

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonPostgreSQL  Xexclude from comparisonSpark SQL  Xexclude from comparisonTransbase  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsWidely used open source RDBMS infoDeveloped as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQLSpark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processingA resource-optimized, high-performance, universally applicable RDBMS
Primary database modelGraph DBMSRelational DBMS infowith object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.Relational DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS infowith Apache Age
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS infowith pgvector extension
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score44.46
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score645.54
Rank#4  Overall
#4  Relational DBMS
Score18.96
Rank#33  Overall
#20  Relational DBMS
Score0.11
Rank#341  Overall
#150  Relational DBMS
Websiteneo4j.comwww.postgresql.orgspark.apache.org/­sqlwww.transaction.de/­en/­products/­transbase.html
Technical documentationneo4j.com/­docswww.postgresql.org/­docsspark.apache.org/­docs/­latest/­sql-programming-guide.htmlwww.transaction.de/­en/­products/­transbase/­features.html
DeveloperNeo4j, Inc.PostgreSQL Global Development Group infowww.postgresql.org/­developerApache Software FoundationTransaction Software GmbH
Initial release20071989 info1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL20141987
Current release5.19, April 202416.2, February 20243.5.0 ( 2.13), September 2023Transbase 8.3, 2022
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoBSDOpen Source infoApache 2.0commercial infofree development license
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.Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
Implementation languageJava, ScalaCScalaC and C++
Server operating systemsLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-free and schema-optionalyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyesyes
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 infospecific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.nono
Secondary indexesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyesnoyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoyes infostandard with numerous extensionsSQL-like DML and DDL statementsyes
APIs and other access methodsBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects
JDBC
ODBC
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API
Supported programming languages.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java infoJDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl
Java
Python
R
Scala
C
C#
C++
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Objective-C
PHP
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsuser defined functions inforealized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.noyes
Triggersyes infovia event handleryesnoyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesyes using Neo4j Fabricpartitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hashyes, utilizing Spark Core
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlySource-replica replication infoother methods possible by using 3rd party extensionsnoneSource-replica replication
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphsyesnoyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDnoyes
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nonono
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standardnofine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
Neo4jPostgreSQLSpark SQLTransbase
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
News

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

What Is Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)?
24 April 2024

This Week in Neo4j: Google Cloud, Analysis, Knowledge Graph, Relationships and more
20 April 2024

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services
3rd partiesTimescale: Calling all PostgreSQL users – the 2023 State of PostgreSQL survey is now open! Share your favorite extensions, preferred frameworks, community experiences, and more. Take the survey today!
» more

Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
» more

Instaclustr: Fully Hosted & Managed PostgreSQL
» more

Aiven for PostgreSQL: Fully managed PostgreSQL for developers with 70+ extensions and flexible orchestration tools.
» more

Fujitsu Enterprise Postgres: An Enterprise Grade PostgreSQL with the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution combined with industry leading security, availability and performance.
» more

CYBERTEC is your professional partner in PostgreSQL topics for over 20 years. As our main aim is to be your single-source all-in-one IT service provider, we offer a wide range of products and services. Visit our website for more details.
» more

SharePlex is the reliable and affordable data replication solution for PostgreSQL migrations, high availability and more.
» more

Redgate webinars: A series of key topics for new PostgreSQL users.
» more

Navicat Monitor is a safe, simple and agentless remote server monitoring tool for PostgreSQL and many other database management systems.
» more

pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
» more

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources
Neo4jPostgreSQLSpark SQLTransbase
DB-Engines blog posts

Applying Graph Analytics to Game of Thrones
12 June 2019, Amy Hodler & Mark Needham, Neo4j (guest author)

MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking
2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

The openCypher Project: Help Shape the SQL for Graphs
22 December 2015, Emil Eifrem (guest author)

show all

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2023
2 January 2024, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Conferences, events and webinars

Monitoring PostgreSQL with Redgate Monitor
Webinar, 10-11am CT / 4-5pm BST, 22 May 2024

Recent citations in the news

Neo4j CTO says new Graph Query Language standard will have 'massive ripple effects'
27 April 2024, SiliconANGLE News

Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance GenAI and Data Solutions USA - English - India - English
26 March 2024, PR Newswire

Neo4j Is Planning IPO on Nasdaq, Largest Owner Greenbridge Says
15 February 2024, Bloomberg

Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure
4 April 2024, InfoWorld

Leveraging Neo4j and Amazon Bedrock for an Explainable, Secure, and Connected Generative AI Solution | Amazon ...
10 November 2023, AWS Blog

provided by Google News

Automatically Generate Types for Your PostgreSQL Database
1 May 2024, The New Stack

Baffle Delivers Enterprise-Grade Data Security for PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora
1 May 2024, Yahoo Finance

Why PostgreSQL Is the Bedrock for the Future of Data
26 April 2024, hackernoon.com

Introducing OCI Database with PostgreSQL: Completing Our Cloud Database Suite for Every Need
14 November 2023, Oracle

Your MySQL 5.7 and PostgreSQL 11 databases will be automatically enrolled into Amazon RDS Extended Support ...
21 December 2023, AWS Blog

provided by Google News

Use Amazon Athena with Spark SQL for your open-source transactional table formats | Amazon Web Services
24 January 2024, AWS Blog

What is Apache Spark? The big data platform that crushed Hadoop
3 April 2024, InfoWorld

Cracking the Apache Spark Interview: 80+ Top Questions and Answers for 2024
1 April 2024, Simplilearn

1.5 Years of Spark Knowledge in 8 Tips | by Michael Berk
23 December 2023, Towards Data Science

Run Apache Hive workloads using Spark SQL with Amazon EMR on EKS | Amazon Web Services
18 October 2023, AWS Blog

provided by Google News



Share this page

Featured Products

Neo4j logo

See for yourself how a graph database can make your life easier.
Use Neo4j online for free.

Datastax Astra logo

Bring all your data to Generative AI applications with vector search enabled by the most scalable
vector database available.
Try for Free

AllegroGraph logo

Graph Database Leader for AI Knowledge Graph Applications - The Most Secure Graph Database Available.
Free Download

RaimaDB logo

RaimaDB, embedded database for mission-critical applications. When performance, footprint and reliability matters.
Try RaimaDB for free.

Milvus logo

Vector database designed for GenAI, fully equipped for enterprise implementation.
Try Managed Milvus for Free

Present your product here