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Google Cayley

An open-source RDF graph database inspired by the graph database behind Google's Knowledge Graph (Freebase). Features pluggable backend storage and multiple query language support.

Visit website GitHub 15.1k stars

Elsewhere

Overall rank
#72
First released
June 2014
License
Apache-2.0
Built with
Go

Details

Vendor
Cayley Community
Previous vendors
Google
Type
RDF
Category
Emerging
Status
Inactive — No significant development activity since 2020.
License
Apache-2.0
Language
Go
Query Languages
GizmoGraphQLMQL
Protocols
HTTP/REST

Lineage

graphdGoogle Cayley2014 · ended
  • Google Cayley, 2014: successor to graphd; no longer developed.

Feature scores

Community & Business

Active development
50%
Updated 3-6 months ago
Commercial support
0%
No commercial support
Live community
0%
No community activity data
Open Source
✓
Open source license
Pricing
0%
No pricing information
Trendiness
75%
No description available

Deployment

Containerization
✓
Docker image available
Work as dedicated instance
✓
Can run as standalone server
Work as embedded
✓
Can embed in application
Testing in-memory version
✓
In-memory mode available

Platform

Operating on Linux
✓
Linux officially supported
Operating on Windows
0%
Not supported
SaaS offering
0%
Self-hosted only

Operations

Automatic updates
0%
Manual updates only
Client side caching
50%
No description available
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
50%
No description available
Query Distribution
✓
Distributed query execution
Replication support
✓
Replication available

Developer Experience

Data types defined
✓
Composite data types
Logging/Auditing
✓
Event logging supported
Object-Graph Mapper
✓
OGM/ORM available
Reactive programming
0%
No reactive programming
Documentation up-to-date
✓
Docs current with latest version
Binary protocol
0%
Text-based protocols only
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
0%
Read uncommitted only
Read committed transaction
0%
Not available
Transaction support
✓
ACID transactions

Schema & Security

Constraints
50%
Uniqueness constraints only
Schema support
50%
Constraints/triggers only
Secondary indexes
✓
Secondary indexes supported
Server side procedures
0%
No stored procedures
Triggers
0%
No triggers
Authentication
0%
No authentication
Authorization
0%
No authorization
Data encryption
0%
No encryption
Sources 6 references

Protocols HTTP/REST

All query languages (Gizmo, GraphQL-inspired, MQL) and writes are served over a JSON HTTP API; a Go-library embedding mode also exists per the docs nav ('Quick Start As Go Library') but no citable quote was found for that specific claim.

  • Unless otherwise noted, all URIs take a POST command.
    HTTP Methods · reviewed 2026-08-02

Released 2014-06

Adds the month to the current year-only value: Google's own announcement post is dated June 2014 and the GitHub repository was created 2014-06-05.

Language Go

Confirms current value; stated directly by the original author in Google's announcement post.

License Apache-2.0

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

Lineage successor to graphd

graphd was the graph store behind Metaweb's Freebase, acquired by Google in 2010.