Established graph databases compared
Graph databases with wide adoption and a long production track record.
18 active established graph databases are in the catalogue. They are written mostly in Java and C, 12 are open source, and 9 carry survey feature scores. Titan, Gaffer, DataStax Enterprise are no longer active and listed separately below.
| Attribute | Neo4j | FalkorDB | JanusGraph | TigerGraph | NebulaGraph | AllegroGraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||||||
| Rank | #1 | #5 | #10 | #20 | #32 | #33 |
| Score | 87.1 | 64.4 | 58.6 | 52.0 | 47.7 | 47.5 |
| GitHub stars | 17.4k | 10.5k | 5.9k | — | 12.5k | — |
| Popularity | 98.3 | 66.1 | 73.4 | 44.6 | 72.8 | 39.4 |
| Activity | 88.3 | 84.3 | 65.3 | 62.7 | 35.5 | 64.7 |
| Community | 65.8 | 58.5 | 39.5 | 50.5 | 42.6 | 38.7 |
| Research | 98.0 | 31.1 | 47.0 | 48.0 | 30.2 | 43.9 |
| Fundamentals | ||||||
| Description | A property graph database that stores data as fixed-size records in linked lists for index-free adjacency traversal. Offers community and commercial editions with an extensive graph algorithms library. | A property graph database that runs as a Redis module, formerly RedisGraph. Uses GraphBLAS sparse matrix operations for query execution, enabling parallel graph traversal. | An open-source distributed property graph database forked from the Titan codebase. Supports pluggable storage backends (Cassandra, HBase, BerkeleyDB) with ACID transactions and native TinkerPop integration. | A distributed property graph database (formerly GraphSQL) built for massively parallel processing and graph analytics. Uses the SQL-like GSQL query language and supports ACID transactions. Available in developer, cloud, and enterprise editions. | A distributed property graph database with separated storage and computation layers, enabling horizontal scaling. Uses a custom SQL-like query language (nGQL) and supports ACID transactions. | An RDF triple store with built-in ontology reasoning capabilities. Supports OWL2 RL materialized reasoning for inferring new triples and federated queries across distributed stores. |
| Vendor | Neo4j Inc | FalkorDB | The Linux Foundation | TigerGraph | Vesoft | Franz Inc |
| Model | Property Graph | Property Graph | Property Graph | Property Graph | Property Graph | RDF |
| Kind | database | database | database | database | database | database |
| Category | Established | Established | Established | Established | Established | Established |
| First released | 2007 | 2018-07 | 2017-04 | 2017-09 | 2019-05 | 2004 |
| Status | active | active | active | active | active | active |
| License | GPL-3.0 | SSPL-1.0 | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary |
| Written in | Java | C | Java | C++ | C++ | Common Lisp |
| Query languages | Cypher, GQL | openCypher | Gremlin | GSQL | nGQL | SPARQL, Prolog |
| gdotv support | yes | yes | yes | no | no | yes |
Feature scores 37 of 46 rows differ
| Feature | Neo4j | FalkorDB | JanusGraph | TigerGraph | NebulaGraph | AllegroGraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community & Business | ||||||
| Active development | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Commercial support | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live community | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | · |
| Open Source | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | · |
| Pricing | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | ✓ |
| Trendiness | ✓ | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | · | 0.5 |
| Deployment | ||||||
| Containerization | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Work as dedicated instance | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Work as embedded | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | · | · |
| Testing in-memory version | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 0.5 | · | · |
| Platform | ||||||
| Operating on Linux | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Operating on Windows | ✓ | 0.75 | ✓ | 0.5 | 0.5 | · |
| SaaS offering | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | 0.5 | ✓ |
| Operations | ||||||
| Automatic updates | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| Client side caching | · | 0.5 | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Data versioning support | · | · | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Live backups | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Distribution | ||||||
| Cluster Re-balancing | · | · | · | · | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data Distribution | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| High-Availability | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Query Distribution | ✓ | · | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Replication support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ |
| Developer Experience | ||||||
| Data types defined | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Logging/Auditing | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ |
| Object-Graph Mapper | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Reactive programming | ✓ | 0.5 | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Documentation up-to-date | ✓ | ✓ | 0.75 | 0.75 | ✓ | ✓ |
| Binary protocol | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | · |
| CLI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| GUI | ✓ | · | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data Model | ||||||
| Multi-database | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ |
| Graph-native data | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| REST API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ |
| Query Language | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ |
| Transactions | ||||||
| Granular locking | ✓ | · | 0.5 | · | · | · |
| Multiple isolation levels | ✓ | · | 0.5 | · | · | ✓ |
| Read committed transaction | ✓ | · | 0.5 | 0.5 | ✓ | · |
| Transaction support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Schema & Security | ||||||
| Constraints | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | ✓ |
| Schema support | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Secondary indexes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ |
| Server side procedures | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Triggers | ✓ | 0.5 | 0.5 | · | ✓ | ✓ |
| Authentication | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Authorization | ✓ | 0.5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data encryption | · | 0.5 | · | ✓ | · | · |
All 18 engines
| Name | Vendor | Model | Category | GitHub stars | License | Written in | Query languages | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Jena Fuseki | Apache Software Foundation | RDF | Established | 1.5k | Apache-2.0 | Java | SPARQL | #18 |
| TinkerGraph | Apache TinkerPop | Property Graph | Established | 2.2k | Apache-2.0 | Java | Gremlin | #19 |
| RDFLib | RDFLib Community | RDF | Established | 2.5k | BSD-3-Clause | Python | SPARQL | #21 |
| Apache AGE | Apache Software Foundation | Property Graph | Established | 4.9k | Apache-2.0 | C | openCypher, SQL | #22 |
| Eclipse RDF4J | Eclipse Foundation | RDF | Established | 422 | BSD-3-Clause | Java | SPARQL | #25 |
| GUN | GUN | Property Graph | Established | 19.2k | Zlib OR MIT OR Apache-2.0 | JavaScript | Custom API | #30 |
| Ontop | Ontopic | RDF | Established | 1k | Apache-2.0 | Java | SPARQL | #40 |
| Apache HugeGraph | Apache Software Foundation | Property Graph | Established | 3.2k | Apache-2.0 | Java | Gremlin, openCypher | #43 |
| Kinetica | Kinetica | Multiple | Established | — | Proprietary | C++ | SQL | #52 |
| TuGraph | Ant Group | Property Graph | Established | 1.8k | Apache-2.0 | C++ | openCypher, GQL | #74 |
| Sparksee | Sparsity Technologies | Property Graph | Established | — | Proprietary | C++ | openCypher | #76 |
| TAO | Meta | Other | Established | — | Proprietary | C++ | TAO API | — |
No longer active
- Titan — No releases since 1.0 in September 2015. Development continued as JanusGraph.
- Gaffer — Repository archived by GCHQ; last change June 2025.
- DataStax Enterprise — IBM withdrew DSE 6.x from sale in October 2025; support runs to December 2027.
- Apache Giraph — Retired to the Apache Attic in October 2023. Repository is archived and read-only.
- FlockDB — Archived and unmaintained since 2017. Twitter is no longer responding to issues or PRs.
- BlazeGraph — Last release in 2019. Project largely dormant, though still used by Wikidata.
- Redland — Mature project with periodic maintenance. Last release 2.0.18 in October 2024.