Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache TinkerPop VS Amazon Neptune

Compare Apache TinkerPop VS Amazon Neptune and see what are their differences

Apache TinkerPop logo Apache TinkerPop

Apache TinkerPop is a graph computing framework for both graph databases (OLTP) and graph analytic systems (OLAP).

Amazon Neptune logo Amazon Neptune

Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service that works with highly connected datasets. Learn about the benefits and popular use cases.
  • Apache TinkerPop Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-24
  • Amazon Neptune Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-04

Apache TinkerPop features and specs

  • Graph Abstraction
    Apache TinkerPop provides a generalized graph computing framework, allowing developers to work with a property graph model that supports both OLTP and OLAP use cases.
  • Gremlin Query Language
    Gremlin is a powerful and flexible graph traversal language that supports both imperative and declarative query styles, making it versatile for complex graph queries.
  • Vendor Neutrality
    TinkerPop is vendor-agnostic and supports multiple graph database systems such as Neo4j, JanusGraph, and Amazon Neptune, providing flexibility in choosing underlying storage.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    TinkerPop has a strong ecosystem with numerous integrations, plugins, and extensions, which helps in building applications more efficiently.
  • Community and Support
    Being part of the Apache Software Foundation, TinkerPop benefits from a strong community, extensive documentation, and regular updates.

Possible disadvantages of Apache TinkerPop

  • Complexity
    The flexibility and power of TinkerPop come with a steep learning curve, especially for those new to graph databases or the Gremlin language.
  • Performance Overhead
    Due to its abstraction layer, there might be performance overhead compared to using a graph database's native query language directly.
  • Limited Graph Algorithms
    Compared to specialized graph processing frameworks like Apache Giraph or GraphX, TinkerPop might have limitations in built-in graph algorithms.
  • Integration Overhead
    Integrating TinkerPop with existing systems may require additional overhead in terms of setup and configuration, especially if leveraging its multi-database support.

Amazon Neptune features and specs

  • Fully Managed Service
    Amazon Neptune is a fully managed graph database service, which eliminates the need for database administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, patching, setup, configuration, backups, and scaling.
  • Supports Multiple Graph Models
    Neptune supports both property graph and RDF graph models, utilizing popular graph query languages like Gremlin and SPARQL, providing flexibility for various use cases.
  • High Performance and Scalability
    Designed for fast query execution and high throughput in complex graphs, Neptune can seamlessly scale to handle hundreds of billions of relationships and queries with low latency.
  • High Availability and Durability
    Amazon Neptune is designed for high availability with read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backup to Amazon S3, and replication across Availability Zones.
  • Integration with AWS Ecosystem
    As a part of AWS, Neptune integrates well with other AWS services such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), AWS Lambda, and Amazon CloudWatch for enhanced functionality and security.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon Neptune

  • Complexity in Use Cases
    Neptune's graph database model is powerful but may be overkill for simpler, more traditional relational database use cases, requiring a learning curve for those unfamiliar with graph paradigms.
  • Cost
    Being a managed service with advanced features, Amazon Neptune can be expensive, and costs can escalate with large-scale usage, especially if not optimized properly.
  • AWS Dependency
    As a native AWS service, Neptune is dependent on the AWS ecosystem, which might be a limitation for organizations looking to maintain a cloud-agnostic strategy.
  • Limited Language Support
    Currently, Neptune primarily supports TinkerPop's Gremlin for property graphs and SPARQL for RDF graphs, which might limit users accustomed to other graph query languages.
  • Customization Constraints
    Although Neptune offers many built-in features, the managed nature of the service can limit deep, low-level customization that some complex graph use cases may require.

Apache TinkerPop videos

No Apache TinkerPop videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Amazon Neptune videos

AWS re:Invent 2019: Deep dive on Amazon Neptune (DAT361)

More videos:

  • Review - Fighting fraud with Amazon Neptune and KeyLines

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache TinkerPop and Amazon Neptune)
NoSQL Databases
33 33%
67% 67
Databases
29 29%
71% 71
Graph Databases
31 31%
69% 69
Big Data
35 35%
65% 65

User comments

Share your experience with using Apache TinkerPop and Amazon Neptune. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Amazon Neptune should be more popular than Apache TinkerPop. It has been mentiond 11 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache TinkerPop mentions (5)

  • All About Graph RAG
    Part of the Apache TinkerPop framework, an imperative graph traversal language for the property graph model. - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Setup Azure Cosmos DB for Gremlin in Spring Boot Java
    The API for Gremlin is built based on Apache TinkerPop, a graph computing framework that uses the Gremlin query language. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Testcontainers
    You might take a look at Tinkerpop: https://tinkerpop.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Getting Started with Redis and RedisGraph
    Property Graph, mainly represented as node and relationship in which they can have properties. The database for this kind of data is usually called Graph Database. Gremlin - by TinkerPop project and Cypher - by Neo4J are their query language (also AQL - Arango Query Language - by ArangoDB, but AQL does not only provides graph query language). - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
  • Should You Invent a New Query Language? (Probably Not)
    The most common graph query language at the moment would be Gremlin, which is part of the Apache TinkePop graph computing framework. It is simple to write, easy to learn, and widely supported by many graph databases and even non-graph databases that can emulate graph queries. On the other hand, it can be verbose for long queries but generally works well for both OLTP and analysis work. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago

Amazon Neptune mentions (11)

  • 6 retrieval augmented generation (RAG) techniques you should know
    The key difference lies in the retrieval mechanism. Vector databases focus on semantic similarity by comparing numerical embeddings, while graph databases emphasize relations between entities. Two solutions for graph databases are Neptune from Amazon and Neo4j. In a case where you need a solution that can accommodate both vector and graph, Weaviate fits the bill. - Source: dev.to / 12 days ago
  • GenAI-Powered Digital Threads - AI Security Under the Hood, Part II
    This technical example was built upon an AWS AI service suite to test its capabilities, and it was pretty impressive, with minimal learning curve for the AI enthusiast. This example leverages Neptune as the graph database, Bedrock’s Claude v3 for our GenAI model and LLM, along with out-of-the-box security notebooks, to populate the data. This coupled with excellent docs and some tinkering helped wire the example... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Choosing the Right AWS Database: A Guide for Modern Applications
    Graph databases are designed to store and process highly connected data, such as social networks, recommendation engines, and fraud detection systems. AWS offers a fully managed graph database service called Amazon Neptune that can handle graph data at scale. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Anyone else find the lack of persistence frustrating?
    My understanding is that a shard is the full set of services that are needed to support at least one game server, and so it isn't a shard that crashes, it's (usually) a "dynamic" game server (DGS) ( which there's currently only one of per shard until they build out the ~~replication layer~~ (Atlas service? https://sc-server-meshing.info/), so it feels an awful lot like the whole shard crashed )... But the DGS... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • What is the best database to use in this usecase?
    I know an alternative to regular SQL relational and noSQL databases is graph databases like Neo4j and Amazon Neptune. I don't know if it's relevant to you but you might want to check out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo4j or https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/. Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache TinkerPop and Amazon Neptune, you can also consider the following products

neo4j - Meet Neo4j: The graph database platform powering today's mission-critical enterprise applications, including artificial intelligence, fraud detection and recommendations.

JanusGraph - JanusGraph is a scalable graph database optimized for storing and querying graphs.

ArangoDB - A distributed open-source database with a flexible data model for documents, graphs, and key-values.

Ontotext Graph DB - Graph DB is a semantic graph database that serves organizations to store, organize and manage content.

Azure Cosmos DB - NoSQL JSON database for rapid, iterative app development.

GrapheneDB - Graph databases as-a-service