Why Neo4j?

Learn the basics in about a minute

What is Neo4j?

Neo4j is a native graph database, built from the ground up to leverage not only data but also data relationships. Neo4j connects data as it’s stored, enabling queries never before imagined, at speeds never thought possible.

The Native Graph Advantage

Unlike traditional databases, which arrange data in rows, columns and tables, Neo4j has a flexible structure defined by stored relationships between data records.

With Neo4j, each data record, or node, stores direct pointers to all the nodes it’s connected to. Because Neo4j is designed around this simple, yet powerful optimization, it performs queries with complex connections orders of magnitude faster, and with more depth, than other databases.

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Cypher — The Graph Query Language

With Neo4j, connections between data are stored – not computed at query time. Cypher is a powerful, graph-optimized query language that understands, and takes advantage of, these stored connections.

When trying to find patterns or insights within data, Cypher queries are often much simpler and easier to write than massive SQL JOINs. Since Neo4j doesn’t have tables, there are no JOINs to worry about. For comparison with SQL, here's a simple Cypher query matching all products in a category hierarchy:

Cypher

Here's a similar query in SQL, which is longer and more complex. Unlike Cypher, where depth is unlimited, this SQL query selects just three levels of depth.

SQL

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Use Your Favorite Programming Language

Neo4j officially supports drivers for .Net, Java, JavaScript, Go and Python. Our community contributors provide many more, including PHP, Ruby, R, Erlang, Clojure and C/C++.

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Neo4j - The Fastest Path To Graph Success

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Neo4j Blog
5-Minute Interview: Graph Databases For Dummies with Dr. Jim Webber and Rik Van Bruggen

Recently we sat down with the authors of Graph Databases For Dummies, Neo4j Special Edition, Dr. Jim Webber and Rik Van Bruggen. Dr. Webber is Neo4j's Chief Scientist and Mr. Van Bruggen leads the Neo4j sales team in Europe, and has been doing so for eight years. This interview takes a high-level ...

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Neo4j Blog
New GraphAcademy Course: Introduction to Graph Algorithms in Neo4j 4.0

We have added this new course to our catalog of free online courses – Introduction to Graph Algorithms in Neo4j 4.0. This course is intended for experienced Cypher developers and data scientists who want to learn the most important best practices for using the algorithms in the Graph Data ...

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Neo4j Blog
Insider Guide to Graph Data Science: First, a Brief Overview

What does the insider's guide to graph data science (GDS) entail? We like to think of it as all the really cool stuff in GDS that's not the algorithms – what tips and tricks GDS pros need to know. During this blog series, we'll cover a variety of topics, from memory management to transforming ...

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