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Neo4j

by Neo4j, Inc. · Database · also known as Neo4j AuraDB, Neo4j Community Edition

Native property-graph database queried with Cypher, offered as a GPL community edition, a commercial enterprise edition and the AuraDB cloud service

GPL-3.0 licenseOpen sourceFreemiumUsage-basedEnterpriseSelf-hostedCloudSelf-hostable
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Link verified Nov 2, 2026

Overview

Neo4j is a property-graph database developed by Neo4j, Inc. Nodes, relationships and their properties are stored natively and queried with Cypher, the declarative graph language that also informed the ISO GQL standard. The server runs on the JVM and exposes the Bolt protocol, with official drivers for Java, Python, JavaScript, Go and .NET, plus the Graph Data Science library for algorithms such as PageRank, community detection and node embeddings and a vector index for similarity search over embeddings.

Community Edition is licensed under the GNU GPL version 3; Enterprise Edition (clustering, role-based security, online backup) is commercial, and AuraDB is the managed cloud offering with free, professional and enterprise tiers. Releases moved to calendar versioning (2025.x, 2026.x) after the 5.x series.

Neo4j fits knowledge graphs, recommendation, fraud and dependency analysis where traversals dominate. Costs are the JVM footprint, the learning curve of a graph model, and the fact that horizontal scaling and advanced security are enterprise-only.

Capabilities

  • Native property-graph storage and index-free adjacency
  • Cypher query language (GQL-aligned)
  • Bolt protocol with official multi-language drivers
  • Graph Data Science library of algorithms
  • Vector index for embedding similarity
  • Causal clustering in Enterprise Edition

Typical workflows

  1. Knowledge graph behind a RAG application
  2. Fraud or dependency analysis with path queries
  3. Recommendation features computed with graph algorithms

Strengths

  • Mature graph query language and tooling
  • Managed AuraDB service with a free tier
  • Large community and training material

Limitations

  • Clustering and advanced security require Enterprise Edition
  • JVM memory footprint
  • Graph modeling differs from relational habits

Prerequisites

  • Java runtime for self-hosted servers, or an AuraDB account

Who it is for

  • Developers building knowledge graphs
  • Data scientists using graph algorithms

Alternatives & comparison

  • Kùzu

    Embedded property-graph database with Cypher, vector and full-text search; MIT-licensed but archived in October 2025 after the company was acquired

    Open sourceOpen source
  • MongoDB

    Document database storing BSON documents with a rich aggregation pipeline, available as a source-available Community Server or the managed Atlas service

    Source-availableFree
  • PostgreSQL

    Open-source object-relational database server with a large extension ecosystem (PostGIS, pgvector, TimescaleDB) and broad SQL coverage

    Open sourceOpen source
Compare Neo4j with its alternatives →

Sources & verification

Primary sources consulted for this record. Claims are tied to the fields each source supports; the automated link checker re-verifies every URL on a schedule.

  • License
    Neo4j Community Edition LICENSE.txt (GPLv3)

    https://github.com/neo4j/neo4j/blob/2026.10/LICENSE.txt

    Supports: license_spdx, source_model

    Default branch 2026.10 at time of check

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official documentation
    Neo4j Documentation

    https://neo4j.com/docs

    Supports: capabilities, languages

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official site
    Neo4j Graph Database & Analytics

    https://neo4j.com/

    Supports: name, summary

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Pricing page
    Neo4j Pricing

    https://neo4j.com/pricing

    Supports: pricing_model

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Repository
    neo4j/neo4j

    https://github.com/neo4j/neo4j

    Supports: repo_url

    checked Nov 1, 2026
Confidence
High
Reviewed
Nov 1, 2026
Links
Broken · Nov 2, 2026

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Redis Ltd. · NoSQL & key-value stores

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In-memory key-value data store used as cache, message broker and database, with data structures, Pub/Sub, Streams and, since Redis 8, built-in JSON, search and time-series modules

LicenseRef-RSALv2 OR SSPL-1.0 OR AGPL-3.0-onlyOpen sourceFreeSelf-hostedNov 2, 2026