Neo4j vs Riak

Overview

Riak

Stacks103

Followers137

Votes44

GitHub Stars4.0K

Forks535

Neo4j

Stacks1.2K

Followers1.4K

Votes351

GitHub Stars15.3K

Forks2.5K

Neo4j vs Riak: What are the differences?

Data Model: The key difference between Neo4j and Riak lies in their data models. Neo4j is a graph database, where data is represented as nodes connected by relationships. This allows for efficient querying and analysis of highly connected data. On the other hand, Riak is a key-value store, where data is accessed and manipulated using unique keys. While Riak can handle large amounts of unstructured data, it lacks the ability to represent complex relationships between data points like Neo4j.
Scalability: Another important distinction between Neo4j and Riak is their scalability. Neo4j is known for its horizontal scalability, which means it can distribute data across multiple machines and handle a large volume of data with ease. Riak, on the other hand, is designed for high availability and fault tolerance, making it ideal for distributed systems. Riak's architecture allows for the seamless addition and removal of nodes, ensuring continuous availability even in the face of failures.
Query Language: Neo4j and Riak also differ in their query languages. Neo4j uses a declarative query language called Cypher, which is specifically designed for querying graph data. It provides an intuitive and expressive syntax for traversing and manipulating graph structures. On the other hand, Riak uses a key-based access model, where data is retrieved based on the given key. While Riak supports indexing and querying based on secondary indexes, it lacks the specialized querying capabilities offered by Cypher in Neo4j.
Consistency and Availability: Consistency and availability are crucial aspects of any distributed database system. Neo4j emphasizes strong consistency, where every read operation returns the most recent version of the data. This ensures data integrity but can impact availability in certain scenarios. Riak, on the other hand, focuses on availability and eventual consistency. It allows for high availability even in the presence of network partitions and supports conflict resolution mechanisms to reconcile data conflicts during synchronization. This makes Riak suitable for scenarios where continuous availability is paramount.
Use Case Focus: Neo4j and Riak also differ in their primary use case focus. Neo4j is well-suited for applications that heavily rely on the relationships between data elements, such as social networks, recommendation systems, and fraud detection. Its graph data model makes it easy to explore and analyze complex relationships. Riak, on the other hand, is often used in scenarios that require high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability, such as content delivery networks, real-time analytics, and session storage.
Ecosystem and Community: The ecosystems and communities surrounding Neo4j and Riak also differ. Neo4j has a thriving community with a wide range of tools, libraries, and plugins available for developers. It also has a comprehensive documentation and learning resources, making it accessible to both beginners and experienced users. Riak, while having an active community, might not be as extensive as Neo4j's. The ecosystem around Riak offers tools and libraries for integration and development, but it may lack the same level of maturity and breadth as Neo4j's ecosystem.

In Summary, Neo4j stands out with its graph data model, scalable architecture, and specialized query language (Cypher), making it suitable for graph-based applications, whereas Riak focuses on high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability, making it ideal for distributed systems and use cases that require continuous availability. Additionally, Neo4j has a more extensive ecosystem and community support compared to Riak.

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Advice on Riak, Neo4j

Jaime

none at none

Aug 31, 2020

Needs advice

Hi, I want to create a social network for students, and I was wondering which of these three Oriented Graph DB's would you recommend. I plan to implement machine learning algorithms such as k-means and others to give recommendations and some basic data analyses; also, everything is going to be hosted in the cloud, so I expect the DB to be hosted there. I want the queries to be as fast as possible, and I like good tools to monitor my data. I would appreciate any recommendations or thoughts.

Context:

I released the MVP 6 months ago and got almost 600 users just from my university in Colombia, But now I want to expand it all over my country. I am expecting more or less 20000 users.

56.4k views56.4k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Riak	Neo4j
Riak is a distributed database designed to deliver maximum data availability by distributing data across multiple servers. As long as your client can reach one Riak server, it should be able to write data. In most failure scenarios, the data you want to read should be available, although it may not be the most up-to-date version of that data.	Neo4j stores data in nodes connected by directed, typed relationships with properties on both, also known as a Property Graph. It is a high performance graph store with all the features expected of a mature and robust database, like a friendly query language and ACID transactions.
-	intuitive, using a graph model for data representation;reliable, with full ACID transactions;durable and fast, using a custom disk-based, native storage engine;massively scalable, up to several billion nodes/relationships/properties;highly-available, when distributed across multiple machines;expressive, with a powerful, human readable graph query language;fast, with a powerful traversal framework for high-speed graph queries;embeddable, with a few small jars;simple, accessible by a convenient REST interface or an object-oriented Java API
Statistics
GitHub Stars 4.0K	GitHub Stars 15.3K
GitHub Forks 535	GitHub Forks 2.5K
Stacks 103	Stacks 1.2K
Followers 137	Followers 1.4K
Votes 44	Votes 351
Pros & Cons
Pros 14 High Performance 11 High Availability 9 Easy Scalability 5 Flexible 1 Distributed	Pros 69 Cypher – graph query language 61 Great graphdb 33 Open source 31 Rest api 27 High-Performance Native API Cons 9 Comparably slow 4 Can't store a vertex as JSON 1 Doesn't have a managed cloud service at low cost

What are some alternatives to Riak, Neo4j?

MongoDB

MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.

MySQL

The MySQL software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions.

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft® SQL Server is a database management and analysis system for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.

SQLite

SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, SQLite does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file.

Cassandra

Partitioning means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application-transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster. Row store means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of SQL.

Memcached

Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering.

MariaDB

Started by core members of the original MySQL team, MariaDB actively works with outside developers to deliver the most featureful, stable, and sanely licensed open SQL server in the industry. MariaDB is designed as a drop-in replacement of MySQL(R) with more features, new storage engines, fewer bugs, and better performance.

RethinkDB

RethinkDB is built to store JSON documents, and scale to multiple machines with very little effort. It has a pleasant query language that supports really useful queries like table joins and group by, and is easy to setup and learn.

ArangoDB

A distributed free and open-source database with a flexible data model for documents, graphs, and key-values. Build high performance applications using a convenient SQL-like query language or JavaScript extensions.

Related Comparisons

Neo4j vs Riak: What are the differences?

Data Model: The key difference between Neo4j and Riak lies in their data models. Neo4j is a graph database, where data is represented as nodes connected by relationships. This allows for efficient querying and analysis of highly connected data. On the other hand, Riak is a key-value store, where data is accessed and manipulated using unique keys. While Riak can handle large amounts of unstructured data, it lacks the ability to represent complex relationships between data points like Neo4j.
Scalability: Another important distinction between Neo4j and Riak is their scalability. Neo4j is known for its horizontal scalability, which means it can distribute data across multiple machines and handle a large volume of data with ease. Riak, on the other hand, is designed for high availability and fault tolerance, making it ideal for distributed systems. Riak's architecture allows for the seamless addition and removal of nodes, ensuring continuous availability even in the face of failures.
Query Language: Neo4j and Riak also differ in their query languages. Neo4j uses a declarative query language called Cypher, which is specifically designed for querying graph data. It provides an intuitive and expressive syntax for traversing and manipulating graph structures. On the other hand, Riak uses a key-based access model, where data is retrieved based on the given key. While Riak supports indexing and querying based on secondary indexes, it lacks the specialized querying capabilities offered by Cypher in Neo4j.
Consistency and Availability: Consistency and availability are crucial aspects of any distributed database system. Neo4j emphasizes strong consistency, where every read operation returns the most recent version of the data. This ensures data integrity but can impact availability in certain scenarios. Riak, on the other hand, focuses on availability and eventual consistency. It allows for high availability even in the presence of network partitions and supports conflict resolution mechanisms to reconcile data conflicts during synchronization. This makes Riak suitable for scenarios where continuous availability is paramount.
Use Case Focus: Neo4j and Riak also differ in their primary use case focus. Neo4j is well-suited for applications that heavily rely on the relationships between data elements, such as social networks, recommendation systems, and fraud detection. Its graph data model makes it easy to explore and analyze complex relationships. Riak, on the other hand, is often used in scenarios that require high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability, such as content delivery networks, real-time analytics, and session storage.
Ecosystem and Community: The ecosystems and communities surrounding Neo4j and Riak also differ. Neo4j has a thriving community with a wide range of tools, libraries, and plugins available for developers. It also has a comprehensive documentation and learning resources, making it accessible to both beginners and experienced users. Riak, while having an active community, might not be as extensive as Neo4j's. The ecosystem around Riak offers tools and libraries for integration and development, but it may lack the same level of maturity and breadth as Neo4j's ecosystem.

Neo4j vs Riak

Overview