Microsoft Fabric Graph vs Neo4j
Both are property graph databases queried with GQL. Microsoft Fabric Graph (2025-10, Proprietary) ranks #98 this month; Neo4j (2007, GPL-3.0, Java) ranks #1.
Choosing between them
Graph in Microsoft Fabric builds a labeled property graph from tables in OneLake, which you load and refresh from those tables, and queries it with GQL or natural language. It bills against existing Fabric capacity with no separate licence, provisions at least 100 GB of graph storage, and falls under OneLake’s governance and access control. Pick it when the data already lives in Fabric and the graph is for analysis.
Neo4j is a standalone graph database that applications read and write directly, queried with Cypher and GQL, and it runs outside Microsoft’s platform. Pick it for application workloads or when your data is not in OneLake.
| Attribute | Microsoft Fabric Graph | Neo4j |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Rank | #98 | #1 |
| Score | 37.5 | 88.8 |
| GitHub stars | — | 17.3k |
| Popularity | 41.6 | 98.6 |
| Activity | 49.9 | 86.5 |
| Community | 30.3 | 73.8 |
| Research | 50.0 | 98.7 |
| Fundamentals | ||
| Description | A graph engine within Microsoft Fabric that builds a read-optimized property graph from lakehouse tables stored in OneLake, queried with GQL or a visual builder. Reads directly from Delta Lake tables without a separate ETL pipeline. | 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. |
| Vendor | Microsoft | Neo4j Inc |
| Model | Property Graph | Property Graph |
| Kind | database | database |
| Category | Enterprise | Established |
| First released | 2025-10 | 2007 |
| Status | active | active |
| License | Proprietary | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | — | Java |
| Query languages | GQL | Cypher, GQL |
| gdotv support | no | yes |
Feature scores — not surveyed for Microsoft Fabric Graph
| Feature | Microsoft Fabric Graph | Neo4j |
|---|---|---|
| Community & Business | ||
| Active development | — | ✓ |
| Commercial support | — | ✓ |
| Live community | — | ✓ |
| Open Source | — | ✓ |
| Pricing | — | 0.5 |
| Trendiness | — | ✓ |
| Deployment | ||
| Containerization | — | ✓ |
| Work as dedicated instance | — | ✓ |
| Work as embedded | — | ✓ |
| Testing in-memory version | — | ✓ |
| Platform | ||
| Operating on Linux | — | ✓ |
| Operating on Windows | — | ✓ |
| SaaS offering | — | ✓ |
| Operations | ||
| Automatic updates | — | · |
| Client side caching | — | · |
| Data versioning support | — | · |
| Live backups | — | ✓ |
| Distribution | ||
| Cluster Re-balancing | — | · |
| Data Distribution | — | ✓ |
| High-Availability | — | ✓ |
| Query Distribution | — | ✓ |
| Replication support | — | ✓ |
| Developer Experience | ||
| Data types defined | — | ✓ |
| Logging/Auditing | — | ✓ |
| Object-Graph Mapper | — | ✓ |
| Reactive programming | — | ✓ |
| Documentation up-to-date | — | ✓ |
| Binary protocol | — | ✓ |
| CLI | — | ✓ |
| GUI | — | ✓ |
| Data Model | ||
| Multi-database | — | ✓ |
| Graph-native data | — | ✓ |
| REST API | — | ✓ |
| Query Language | — | ✓ |
| Transactions | ||
| Granular locking | — | ✓ |
| Multiple isolation levels | — | ✓ |
| Read committed transaction | — | ✓ |
| Transaction support | — | ✓ |
| Schema & Security | ||
| Constraints | — | ✓ |
| Schema support | — | ✓ |
| Secondary indexes | — | ✓ |
| Server side procedures | — | ✓ |
| Triggers | — | ✓ |
| Authentication | — | ✓ |
| Authorization | — | ✓ |
| Data encryption | — | · |
Links
- Microsoft Fabric Graph · website · full profile
- Neo4j · website · github · full profile