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DBMS > Neo4j vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. RDF4J vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsRDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.Open source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelGraph DBMSRDF storeSearch engine
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score50.39
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score1.02
Rank#226  Overall
#9  RDF stores
Score6.05
Rank#70  Overall
#8  Search engines
Websiteneo4j.comrdf4j.orgsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationneo4j.com/­docsrdf4j.org/­documentationsphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperNeo4j, Inc.Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.Sphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release200720042001
Current release5.12, September 20233.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoEclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
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 languageJava, ScalaJavaC++
Server operating systemsLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeschema-free and schema-optionalyes infoRDF Schemasyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesno
Secondary indexesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyesyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLnonoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Java API
RIO infoRDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL infoSesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languages.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Java
PHP
Python
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsyesno
Triggersyes infovia event handleryesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesyes using Neo4j FabricnoneSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynonenone
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
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphsno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACID infoIsolation support depends on the API usedno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infoin-memory storage is supported as wellyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)nono
More information provided by the system vendor
Neo4jRDF4J infoformerly known as SesameSphinx
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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More resources
Neo4jRDF4J infoformerly known as SesameSphinx
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