Neo4j vs Stardog
Neo4j vs Stardog: side-by-side comparison of two knowledge-graph platforms systems — architecture, taxonomy, license, pricing, MCP/A2A support, and direct edges.
Cost & capability
| Neo4j | Stardog | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost tier | free | — |
| $/Mtok input | 0 | — |
| $/Mtok output | 0 | — |
Where they differ (10)
Rows where both sides have data and the values disagree — the shortlist of dimensions that actually distinguish these two systems.
| Neo4j | Stardog | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Property graph + vectors + Aura Agent | RDF semantic platform + Voicebox AI |
| Created | 2024-12 | 2010 |
| Pricing | Free + paid | Stardog Free (renewable 1-year license, commercial use allowed, no HA/caching/backups); Enterprise on-prem and cloud quote-based |
| Funding | $325M total $2.0B val Series F · 2021-06 | $32M Series C (last known) · 2022-01 |
| Backend storage | custom (native graph store) | custom (RDF triple store) |
| Deployment | Both (self-hosted + managed cloud) — Community/Enterprise self-managed; Neo4j Aura cloud | Both |
| API surface | Bolt, REST, GraphQL, Cypher, SDK: many | REST, SPARQL, SDK: Java, Python, JS |
| Multi-tenancy | AuraDB Virtual Dedicated Cloud / AuraDS Enterprise: dedicated AWS/Azure/GCP account/subscription/project per customer; PrivateLink supported | Per-database access control; on-prem / private-cloud / SaaS options |
| MCP | yes — official neo4j/mcp (product team); Neo4j Labs also ships neo4j-contrib/mcp-neo4j | yes — official Stardog Cloud MCP server (stardog-union/stardog-cloud-mcp; remote setup in beta) |
| OpenTelemetry | first-class — Neo4j metrics + OTel | first-class — Prometheus + OTel |
At a glance
| Neo4j | Stardog | |
|---|---|---|
| Section | Knowledge-graph platforms | Knowledge-graph platforms |
| Tier | T1 | T1 |
| Type | Property graph + vectors + Aura Agent | RDF semantic platform + Voicebox AI |
| Created | 2024-12 | 2010 |
| Latest release | 2026.07 CalVer series (current default branch; exact patch and date not captured) | — |
| License | GPL-3.0 (Community Edition); Enterprise Edition proprietary | — |
| GitHub | neo4j/neo4j — ~17.2k stars, active (default branch 2026.07) | — |
| Pricing | Free + paid | Stardog Free (renewable 1-year license, commercial use allowed, no HA/caching/backups); Enterprise on-prem and cloud quote-based |
| Funding | $325M total $2.0B val Series F · 2021-06 | $32M Series C (last known) · 2022-01 |
| Backend storage | custom (native graph store) | custom (RDF triple store) |
| Deployment | Both (self-hosted + managed cloud) — Community/Enterprise self-managed; Neo4j Aura cloud | Both |
| API surface | Bolt, REST, GraphQL, Cypher, SDK: many | REST, SPARQL, SDK: Java, Python, JS |
| Embedding | BYO | BYO |
| Multi-tenancy | AuraDB Virtual Dedicated Cloud / AuraDS Enterprise: dedicated AWS/Azure/GCP account/subscription/project per customer; PrivateLink supported | Per-database access control; on-prem / private-cloud / SaaS options |
| MCP | yes — official neo4j/mcp (product team); Neo4j Labs also ships neo4j-contrib/mcp-neo4j | yes — official Stardog Cloud MCP server (stardog-union/stardog-cloud-mcp; remote setup in beta) |
| A2A | no Google A2A (Agent2Agent) integration documented as of 2026-05. | no Google A2A (Agent2Agent) integration documented as of 2026-05. |
| OpenTelemetry | first-class — Neo4j metrics + OTel | first-class — Prometheus + OTel |
| Optimised for | relationship modeling + reasoning + governance over pure vector | relationship modeling + reasoning + governance over pure vector |
| Anti-fit | not for purely-vector or simple-RAG use cases (graph adds setup cost) | not for purely-vector or simple-RAG use cases (graph adds setup cost) |
Pros & cons
Neo4j
Pros: Largest graph database community by orders of magnitude; Cypher is the de-facto graph query language; strong native AI/RAG integrations.
Cons: Property-graph model can be awkward for RDF/semantic-web workloads; clustering and scale-out can get expensive.
Stardog
Pros: Mature semantic graph + virtualization (data fabric over relational/cloud sources); strong inference rules engine.
Cons: Enterprise-tier pricing and complexity; smaller community than Neo4j; license shifted to Stardog Studio commercial focus.