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DBMS > Neo4j vs. Sphinx vs. Sqrrl

System Properties Comparison Neo4j vs. Sphinx vs. Sqrrl

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparisonSqrrl  Xexclude from comparison
Sqrrl has been acquired by Amazon and became a part of Amazon Web Services. It has been removed from the DB-Engines ranking.
DescriptionScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databasesAdaptable, secure NoSQL built on Apache Accumulo
Primary database modelGraph DBMSSearch engineDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score5.72
Rank#56  Overall
#5  Search engines
Websiteneo4j.comsphinxsearch.comsqrrl.com
Technical documentationneo4j.com/­docssphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperNeo4j, Inc.Sphinx Technologies Inc.Amazon infooriginally Sqrrl Data, Inc.
Initial release200720012012
Current release5.23, August 20243.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open SourceOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence availablecommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageJava, ScalaC++Java
Server operating systemsLinux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
Data schemeschema-free and schema-optionalyesschema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesnoyes
Secondary indexesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes infofull-text index on all search fieldsyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLnoSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)no
APIs and other access methodsBolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Proprietary protocolAccumulo Shell
Java API
JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Thrift
Supported programming languages.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Actionscript
C infousing GLib
C#
C++
Cocoa
Delphi
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk
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 FabricSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supportedSharding infomaking use of Hadoop
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynoneselectable replication factor infomaking use of Hadoop
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonoyes
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 infoDocument store kept consistent with combination of global timestamping, row-level transactions, and server-side consistency resolution.
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyes infoRelationships in graphsnono
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnoAtomic updates per row, document, or graph entity
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.yes
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)noCell-level Security, Data-Centric Security, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)
More information provided by the system vendor
Neo4jSphinxSqrrl
News

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

Agentic GraphRAG for Commercial Contracts
5 May 2025

Simplify Modern Application Development With GraphQL on Neo4j AuraDB
30 April 2025

Text2Cypher: The Impact of Difficult Example Selection
29 April 2025

This Week in Neo4j: MCP, Snowflake, GenAI, GraphRAG and more
26 April 2025

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More resources
Neo4jSphinxSqrrl
DB-Engines blog posts

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

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2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

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

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The DB-Engines ranking includes now search engines
4 February 2013, Paul Andlinger

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Recent citations in the news

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

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

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

Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop, Neo4j Aura Graph Analytics, and more software development news
7 May 2025, SD Times

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Manticore is on search for new investment and partners
9 December 2024, Blocks and Files

Switching From Sphinx to MkDocs Documentation – What Did I Gain and Lose
2 February 2024, Towards Data Science

Brainiacs Episode 13: Sphinx Formations, Fake News, and “The Mom Penalty”
23 February 2024, NYU

Create a Full Autocomplete Search Application with Elasticsearch, Kibana, NestJS and React
14 September 2022, HackerNoon

Voice Recognition Tools Review. Alexa, PocketSphinx, Google API or Project Oxford?
1 March 2024, Netguru

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Amazon's cloud business acquires Sqrrl, a security start-up with NSA roots
23 January 2018, CNBC

Splunk details Sqrrl 'screw-ups' that hampered threat hunting
6 May 2024, TechTarget

Peanut butter whisky is officially a thing. Here are five to try
7 August 2024, delicious.com.au

Amazon acquires cybersecurity startup Sqrrl
8 June 2023, CISO Mag

Deloitte launches Threat Hunting-As-A-Service powered by Sqrrl
30 November 2017, Help Net Security

provided by Google News



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