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BlazeGraph

An RDF database supporting billions of edges on a single machine. Uses an alternative approach to RDF reification that enables property graph-like capabilities. Notable as the backend for Wikidata's query service.

Overall rank
#78
First released
2007
License
GPL-2.0
Built with
Java

Details

Vendor
SYSTAP
Previous names
Bigdata
Type
RDF
Category
Established
Status
Inactive — Last release in 2019. Project largely dormant, though still used by Wikidata.
License
GPL-2.0
Language
Java
Query Languages
SPARQLGremlin
Protocols
HTTP/RESTSPARQL Protocol

Lineage

Bigdata2007BlazeGraphendedNeptune2017
  • BlazeGraph: renamed from Bigdata; no longer developed.
  • Neptune, 2017: based on BlazeGraph.

Feature scores

Community & Business

Active development
0%
No updates in 6+ months
Commercial support
0%
No commercial support
Live community
25%
<25% of issues addressed
Open Source
✓
Open source license
Pricing
0%
No pricing information
Trendiness
✓
Growing or stable trend

Deployment

Containerization
0%
No container image
Work as dedicated instance
✓
Can run as standalone server
Work as embedded
✓
Can embed in application
Testing in-memory version
0%
No in-memory option

Platform

Operating on Linux
75%
Open source (Linux compatible)
Operating on Windows
75%
Open source (Windows compatible)
SaaS offering
0%
Self-hosted only

Operations

Automatic updates
0%
Manual updates only
Client side caching
0%
No client-side caching
Data versioning support
0%
No versioning
Live backups
0%
No live backups

Distribution

Cluster Re-balancing
0%
No auto-rebalancing
Data Distribution
✓
Data sharding supported
High-Availability
✓
HA mechanisms available
Query Distribution
✓
Distributed query execution
Replication support
✓
Replication available

Developer Experience

Data types defined
50%
Basic data types only
Logging/Auditing
✓
Event logging supported
Object-Graph Mapper
0%
No object mapper
Reactive programming
0%
No reactive programming
Documentation up-to-date
✓
Docs current with latest version
Binary protocol
✓
Binary protocol available
CLI
✓
Command-line interface
GUI
✓
Visual interface available

Data Model

Multi-database
0%
Graph-only
Graph-native data
✓
Native graph storage
REST API
✓
REST endpoint available
Query Language
✓
Standard query language (Cypher/Gremlin)

Transactions

Granular locking
0%
No granular locking
Multiple isolation levels
✓
Multiple isolation levels
Read committed transaction
✓
Read committed available
Transaction support
✓
ACID transactions

Schema & Security

Constraints
0%
No constraints
Schema support
0%
Schema-less
Secondary indexes
✓
Secondary indexes supported
Server side procedures
✓
Stored procedures supported
Triggers
0%
No triggers
Authentication
0%
No authentication
Authorization
0%
No authorization
Data encryption
0%
No encryption
Sources 6 references

Protocols SPARQL Protocol, HTTP/REST

Default HTTP/SPARQL service at http://localhost:9999/blazegraph/; also exposes a Blueprints/Tinkerpop3 API.

  • Blazegraph™ DB is a ultra high-performance graph database supporting Blueprints and RDF/SPARQL APIs.
    blazegraph/database · reviewed 2026-08-02
  • You can setup an http or https reverse proxy configuration that has authentication and forward requests to the local Blazegraph instance (typically running on localhost:9999).
    blazegraph/database · reviewed 2026-08-02

License GPL-2.0

SPDX identifier as classified by GitHub from the repository licence file.

Released 2007

Confirms current value. Bigdata (Blazegraph's original name) was under development from 2006, and the SourceForge project through which it was first distributed was registered in March 2007; the 1.0.0 release itself did not follow until 2011.

Language Java

Confirms current value.

  • Blazegraph™ is a standards-based, high-performance, scalable, open-source graph database. Written entirely in Java, the platform supports Blueprints and RDF/ SPARQL 1.1 family of specifications, including Query, Update, Basic Federated Query, and Service Description.
    About_Blazegraph · blazegraph/database Wiki · GitHub · reviewed 2026-08-02