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DBMS > Neo4j vs. Spark SQL vs. TiDB

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. Spark SQL vs. TiDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSpark SQL  Xexclude from comparisonTiDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsSpark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processingTiDB is an open source distributed SQL database that supports Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing (HTAP) workloads. It is MySQL compatible and features horizontal scalability, strong consistency, and high availability.
Primary database modelGraph DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score44.47
Rank#23  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score19.15
Rank#33  Overall
#20  Relational DBMS
Score4.94
Rank#72  Overall
#40  Relational DBMS
Websiteneo4j.comspark.apache.org/­sqlpingcap.com
Technical documentationneo4j.com/­docsspark.apache.org/­docs/­latest/­sql-programming-guide.htmldocs.pingcap.com/­tidb/­stable
DeveloperNeo4j, Inc.Apache Software FoundationPingCAP, Inc.
Initial release200720142016
Current release5.18.1, March 20243.5.0 ( 2.13), September 20237.6.0, January 2024
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoApache 2.0
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.TiDB Cloud: Fully-managed TiDB Service. Bring everything great about TiDB to the cloud.
Implementation languageJava, ScalaScalaGo, Rust
Server operating systemsLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Windows
Linux
Data schemeschema-free and schema-optionalyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
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.nono
Secondary indexesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Lucenenoyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoSQL-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
JDBC
ODBC
GORM
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
SQLAlchemy
Supported programming languages.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Java
Python
R
Scala
Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsnono
Triggersyes infovia event handlernono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesyes using Neo4j Fabricyes, utilizing Spark Corehorizontal partitioning (by key range)
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynoneUsing Raft consensus algorithm to ensure data replication with strong consistency among multiple replicas.
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoyes infowith TiSpark Connector
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 Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphsnoyes infofull support since version 6.6
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnoACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.nono
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)noFine grained access rights according to SQL-standard
More information provided by the system vendor
Neo4jSpark SQLTiDB
Specific characteristicsNeo4j delivers graph technology that has been battle tested for performance and scale...
» more
TiDB is an advanced open-source, distributed SQL database for modern application...
» more
Competitive advantagesNeo4j is the market leader, graph database category creator, and the most widely...
» more
- HORIZONTAL SCALING : TiDB grants total transparency into your data workloads without...
» more
Typical application scenariosReal-Time Recommendations Master Data Management Identity and Access Management Network...
» more
TiDB is ideal for transactional applications that require extreme scalability and...
» more
Key customersOver 800 commercial customers and over 4300 startups use Neo4j. Flagship customers...
» more
Block, Pinterest, Catalyst, Bolt, Flipkart, Capcom, Shopee (E-commerce), JD Cloud...
» more
Market metricsNeo4j boasts the world's largest graph database ecosystem with more than 140 million...
» more
34K+ GitHub stars 5K+ members in TiDB Community Slack 1K+ community contributors...
» more
Licensing and pricing modelsGPL v3 license that can be used all the places where you might use MySQL. Neo4j Commercial...
» more
TiDB Community : Free open source software (Apache 2.0) TiDB Self-Hosted : Enterprise...
» more
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

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More resources
Neo4jSpark SQLTiDB
DB-Engines blog posts

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