Couchbase Server vs. Neo4j

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Couchbase Server
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Couchbase Server is a cloud-native, distributed database that fuses the strengths of relational databases such as SQL and ACID transactions with JSON flexibility and scale that defines NoSQL. It is available as a service in commercial clouds and supports hybrid and private cloud deployments.N/A
Neo4j
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Neo4j is an open source embeddable graph database developed by Neo Technologies based in San Mateo, California with an office in Sweden.
$65
per month
Pricing
Couchbase ServerNeo4j
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Aura Professional
$65
per month
Community Edition
Free
Enterprise Edition
Contact Sales
Aura Free
Free
Aura Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Couchbase ServerNeo4j
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Features
Couchbase ServerNeo4j
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
Couchbase Server
8.9
97 Ratings
1% above category average
Neo4j
-
Ratings
Performance8.897 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability9.396 Ratings00 Ratings
Concurrency8.894 Ratings00 Ratings
Security8.994 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability9.395 Ratings00 Ratings
Data model flexibility8.995 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility8.194 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Couchbase ServerNeo4j
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Couchbase ServerNeo4j
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(100 ratings)
2.2
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
2.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.2
(95 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(51 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Couchbase ServerNeo4j
Likelihood to Recommend
Couchbase
Best suited when edge devices have interrupted internet connection. And Couchbase provides reliable data transfer. If used for attachment Couchbase has a very poor offering. A hard limit of 20 MB is not okay. They have the best conflict resolution but not so great query language on Couchbase lite.
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Neo Technologies
Neo4J is great for creating network graphs or illustrating how things are related. It is also good for finding individuals or things that have greater influence than others in a system. It is not appropriate if you have standard data sets that can be analyzed using conventional methods or visualized using Tableau, for example.
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Pros
Couchbase
  • Couchbase performance is exceptional both for in-memory and persisted transactions.
  • Handling of node failures and cluster rebalancing (high availability).
  • Enterprise support from Couchbase themselves
  • Good documentation
  • Streaming of bucket (database) level mutations via their Database Change Protocol (DCP).
  • Replication of datasets between native clients and Couchbase buckets
  • Handling of simultaneous writes to the same record with performance penalties
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Neo Technologies
  • Mature Query language, I found Cypher QL to be mature in handling all sorts of problems we throw at it. Its expressive enough to be intuitive while providing rich features for various scenarios.
  • Native support for REST API, that makes interacting with Neo4J intuitive and easy.
  • Support for Procedures in Java, procedures are custom code that could be added to the Neo4J to write custom querying of data. The best part about the procedures is it could be invoked using the REST API. This allows us to overcome any shortcomings from their Cypher query language.
  • Nice UI and interface for executing the Query and visualizing the response.
  • UI access controlled by User credentials allows for neat access controls.
  • Awesome free community edition for small-scale projects.
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Cons
Couchbase
  • The N1QL engine performs poorly compared to SQL engines due to the number of interactions needed, so if your use case involves the need for a lot of SQL-like query activity as opposed to the direct fetch of data in the form of a key/value map you may want to consider a RDBMS that has support for json data types so that you can more easily mix the use of relational and non-relational approaches to data access.
  • You have to be careful when using multiple capabilities (e.g. transactions with Sync Gateway) as you will typically run into problems where one technology may not operate correctly in combination with another.
  • There are quality problems with some newly released features, so be careful with being an early adopter unless you really need the capability. We somewhat desperately adopted the use of transactions, but went through multiple bughunt cycles with Couchbase working the kinks out.
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Neo Technologies
  • One of the hardest challenges that Neo4j had to solve was the horizontal scaling problem. I am not updated on recent developments, but at the time of my use, I couldn't find a viable solution.
  • Neo4j does not play with other open source APIs like Blueprint. You have to use the native Neo4j API.
  • There wasn't a visual tool to see your data. Of course, third party tools are always available, but I would have loved something which came with the Neo4j bundle. I love that Docker comes bundled with Kitematic, so it's not wrong to hope that Neo4j could also ship with some default visualization software.
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Likelihood to Renew
Couchbase
I rarely actually use Couchbase Server, I just stay up-to-date with the features that it provides. However, when the need arises for a NoSQL datastore, then I will strongly consider it as an option
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Neo Technologies
No answers on this topic
Usability
Couchbase
Couchbase has been quite a usable for our implementation. We had similar experience with our previous "trial" implementation, however it was short lived.
Couchbase has so far exceeded expectation. Our implementation team is more confident than ever before.
When we are Live for more than 6 months, I'm hoping to enhance this rating.
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Neo Technologies
[Based on] Query Language, Performance on small and large data sets, integration and deployment, analysis, API support, Interactive UI.
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Performance
Couchbase
One of Couchbase’s greatest assets is its performance with large datasets. Properly set up with well-sized clusters, it is also highly reliable and scalable. User management could be better though, and security often feels like an afterthought. Couchbase has improved tremendously since we started using it, so I am sure that these issues will be ironed out.
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Neo Technologies
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Couchbase
I haven't had many opportunities to request support, I will look forward to better the rating. We have technical development and integration team who reach out directly to TAM at Couchbase.
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Neo Technologies
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Couchbase
The Apache Cassandra was one type of product used in our company for a couple of use-cases. The Aerospike is something we [analyzed] not so long time ago as an interesting alternative, due to its performance characteristics. The Oracle Coherence was and is still being used for [the] distributed caching use-case, but it will be replaced eventually by Couchbase. Though each of these products [has] its own strengths and weaknesses, we prefer sticking to Couchbase because of [the] experience we have with this product and because it is cost-effective for our organization.
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Neo Technologies
Neo4j is a graph store and has different use cases compared to another NoSQL Document store like MongoDB. MongoDB is a bad choice when joins are common as existing operators for joining two documents (similar to tables in a relational store) as Mongo 3.5 use SQL like join algorithms which are expensive. MongoDB is a great choice when distributed schemaless rich document structures are important requirements. Cross document transaction support is not native to MongoDB yet, whereas Neo4J is ACID complaint with all its operations.
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Scalability
Couchbase
So far, the way that we mange and upgrade our clusters has be very smooth. It works like a dream when we use it in concert with AWS and their EC2 machines. Having access to powerful instances along side the Couchbase interface is amazing and allows us to do rebalances or maintenance without a worry
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Neo Technologies
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Couchbase
  • Great performance.
  • Leading Couchbase Lite capabilities for mobile use.
  • Developers' learning curve with replica reads and multi cluster can be long. Needs guidance and nurturing.
  • Cluster maintenance during OS patching, etc. has multiple ways to approach. Operational teams may need some guidance.
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Neo Technologies
  • Positive: Less complex queries on graph structures, than in relational databases.
  • Negative: maintenance is a huge deal, things doesn't work and break, requiring lengthy restore operations.
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