DBMS > Neo4j vs. Realm vs. RethinkDB

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. Realm vs. RethinkDB

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

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

Primary database model

Graph DBMS

Document store

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

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

Score	47.91
Rank	#20	Overall
	#1	Graph DBMS

Score	6.80
Rank	#51	Overall
	#8	Document stores

Score	2.30
Rank	#105	Overall
	#19	Document stores

Website

neo4j.com

realm.io

rethinkdb.com

Technical documentation

neo4j.com/docs

realm.io/docs

rethinkdb.com/docs

Developer

Neo4j, Inc.

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

The Linux Foundation

since July 2017

Initial release

2007

2014

2009

Current release

5.23, August 2024

2.4.1, August 2020

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version3, commercial licenses available

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.

Implementation language

Java, Scala

C++

Server operating systems

Linux

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

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

schema-free and schema-optional

yes

schema-free

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

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

SQL

Support of SQL

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

Supported programming languages

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

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

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

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Triggers

yes

via event handler

yes

Change Listeners

Client-side triggers through changefeeds

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes using Neo4j Fabric

none

Sharding

range based

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Causal Clustering using Raft protocol

available in in Enterprise Version only

none

Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

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

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Relationships in graphs

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Atomic single-document operations

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

MVCC based

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

users and table-level permissions

More information provided by the system vendor

News

Run Cypher From Java
13 May 2025

Integrating Neo4j With LangChain4j for GraphRAG Vector Stores and Retrievers
12 May 2025

This Week in Neo4j: NODES, Knowledge Graph, Graph Analytics, MCP and more
10 May 2025

Aura Graph Analytics: A Technical Deep Dive
7 May 2025

Introducing Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics: Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy Graph Analytics for Any Data Source
7 May 2025

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More resources

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

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

show all

Meet some database management systems you are likely to hear more about in the future
4 August 2014, Paul Andlinger

show all

Recent citations in the news

Neo4j Brings Graph Analytics to Any Data Platform
14 May 2025, CDOTrends

NASA jettisons Neo4j database for Memgraph citing costs
7 May 2025, theregister.com

Neo4j goes serverless, bringing graph analytics to any data source
7 May 2025, SiliconANGLE

Latest Neo4j release aims to simplify graph technology
7 May 2025, TechTarget

Neo4j Launches Industry's First Graph Analytics Offering For Any Data Platform
7 May 2025, PR Newswire

provided by Google News

Cloud Firestore vs Realm Platform
21 December 2022, Netguru

Danish CEO explains Silicon Valley learning curve for European entrepreneurs
6 October 2016, The Business Journals

Is Swift the Future of Server-side Development?
12 September 2017, solutionsreview.com

Java Synthetic Methods — What are these ?
27 February 2021, DataDrivenInvestor

Kotlin Programming Language Will Surpass Java On Android Next Year
15 October 2017, Fossbytes

provided by Google News

How to Use RethinkDB with Node.js Applications
7 November 2024, SitePoint

An introduction to building realtime apps with RethinkDB
4 June 2015, devmio

Stripe acquires team behind NoSQL database startup RethinkDB
5 October 2016, VentureBeat

RethinkDB is dead, and MongoDB isn’t what killed it
24 January 2017, TechRepublic

Open Source Software Is Big Business With Big Funding
17 April 2017, Crunchbase News

provided by Google News

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