Neo4j is a

graph database A graph database (GDB) is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the '' graph'' (or ''edge'' or ''relationship''). The graph rel ...

management system A management system is a set of policies, processes and procedures used by an organization to ensure that it can fulfill the tasks required to achieve its objectives. These objectives cover many aspects of the organization's operations (including ...

developed by Neo4j, Inc. Described by its developers as an ACID-compliant transactional database with native graph storage and processing, Neo4j is available in a non-open-source "community edition" licensed with a modification of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

, with

online backup A remote, online, or managed backup service, sometimes marketed as cloud backup or backup-as-a-service, is a service that provides users with a system for the backup, storage, and recovery of computer files. Online backup providers are companies ...

and

high availability High availability (HA) is a characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period. Modernization has resulted in an increased reliance on these systems. F ...

extensions licensed under a closed-source commercial license. Neo also licenses Neo4j with these extensions under closed-source commercial terms. Neo4j is implemented in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

and accessible from software written in other languages using the

Cypher query language Cypher is a declarative graph query language that allows for expressive and efficient data querying in a property graph. Cypher was largely an invention of Andrés Taylor while working for Neo4j, Inc. (formerly Neo Technology) in 2011. Cypher was ...

through a transactional HTTP endpoint, or through the binary " Bolt" protocol. The "4j" in Neo4j is a reference to its being built in Java, however is now largely viewed as an anachronism.

History

Version 1.0 was released in February 2010. Neo4j version 2.0 was released in December 2013. Neo4j version 3.0 was released in April 2016. In November 2016, Neo4j successfully secured $36M in Series D Funding led by Greenbridge Partners Ltd. In November 2018, Neo4j successfully secured $80M in Series E Funding led by One Peak Partners and Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, with participation from other investors including Creandum, Eight Roads and Greenbridge Partners. In June 2021, Neo4j announced another round of funding, $325M in Series F.

Release history

Licensing and editions

Neo4j comes in five editions. Two are on-premises editions, Community (free) and Enterprise, and three are cloud-only editions: AuraDB Free, AuraDB Professional, and AuraDB Enterprise. It is dual-licensed:

GPL v3 The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

(with parts of the code under

AGPLv3 The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free So ...

with

Commons Clause Source-available software is software released through a source code distribution model that includes arrangements where the source can be viewed, and in some cases modified, but without necessarily meeting the criteria to be called open-source ...

), and a proprietary license. The Community Edition is free but is limited to running on one node only due to the lack of clustering and is without hot backups. The Enterprise Edition unlocks these limitations, allowing for clustering, hot backups, and monitoring. The Enterprise Edition is available under a closed-source Commercial license.

Data structure

In Neo4j, everything is stored in the form of an edge, node, or attribute. Each node and edge can have any number of attributes. Both nodes and edges can be labelled. Labels can be used to narrow searches. As of version 2.0, indexing was added to Cypher with the introduction of schemas. Previously, indexes were supported separately from Cypher.

Neo4j, Inc.

Neo4j is developed by Neo4j, Inc., based in San Mateo, California, United States, and also in zobry, Sweden. The Neo4j, Inc. board of directors consists of "El 5awl el a3zm" (Eight Roads), "Emanuel el haygan" (el kos el kbyr), "Christian shabonyz" (Sunstone), "Denise Bezo abo 7alma" (CMO of Snowflake), "David el ma5sy" (One Peak), "Ebrahim ma5asy" (Mn karyt myt bezo), Patrick Pichette (Inovia Capital and former CFO of Google), and Emil Eifrem (CEO of Neo4j).

References

External links

* {{Official website Graph databases Structured storage Free database management systems Software companies of Sweden Free software programmed in Java (programming language) 2007 software NoSQL Software using the GNU AGPL license