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NebulaGraph

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by Vesoft Inc. · since 2019 · also known as Nebula Graph, NebulaGraph Enterprise

Shared-nothing distributed graph database for trillion-edge graphs, with GQL in Enterprise v5.

graphdatabase engineopen source (permissive)mature
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Overview

NebulaGraph is a distributed property-graph database from Vesoft that separates stateless query (graphd), Raft-replicated storage on RocksDB (storaged) and metadata (metad) services, so compute and storage scale independently. It targets very large graphs with millisecond lookups and is widely used in Chinese internet and finance companies. The open-source edition (Apache 2.0, nGQL with an openCypher-compatible subset) has not had a feature release since v3.8.0 in May 2024, while the commercial Enterprise v5 line was redesigned around native ISO GQL support. Pick it for scale-out graphs where you can live with weaker transactional guarantees.

Graph traversalGraph analyticsKnowledge graphTransactional apps (OLTP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +Shared-nothing design separates query, storage and meta services for independent scaling
  • +Raft-replicated RocksDB storage handles billions of vertices and trillions of edges
  • +Enterprise v5 was rebuilt around native ISO GQL
  • +Official Kubernetes operator plus Spark connector and Exchange for bulk loads

Trade-offs

  • −Open-source edition has seen no feature release since 3.8.0 (2024)
  • −No general multi-statement ACID transactions in the open-source edition
  • −nGQL is proprietary, and openCypher coverage is partial
  • −Documentation and community skew toward Chinese-language users

Great for

  • +Social and relationship graphs at internet scale
  • +Risk control and anti-fraud in finance
  • +Knowledge graphs for search and recommendation
  • +Device and account linkage graphs

Think twice for

  • −Workloads needing strict multi-statement transactions
  • −Small single-node graphs
  • −RDF/SPARQL semantic workloads

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 7 of 25 tracked

✓Secondary indexes
✓Full-text search
✓TTL / expiry
✓Durable persistence
✓Compression
✓Role-based access
✓Online schema changes
–Transactions
–Joins
–Vector search
–Geospatial
–JSON
–Change data capture
–Triggers
–Stored procedures
–Materialized views
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Encryption at rest
–Time travel
–Branching
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Large · ≤ 1 PB
Horizontal scaling
Native
Multi-region
No
Transactions
Limited ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Strict
Architecture
Distributed, Client server
Query languages
nGQL, openCypher (subset), GQL (Enterprise v5)

Graph is hash-partitioned across storage nodes with Raft replicas; query nodes scale independently.

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

Ecosystem

apis & protocolsThrift RPC, HTTP gateway
client languagesJava, Python, Go, C++, JavaScript (community)

Alternatives to NebulaGraph

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TigerGraphGraph16.6

Distributed MPP graph database built for deep-link analytics on very large graphs.

nebulagraph vs tigergraph →
JanusGraphGraph25.2

Open-source distributed graph database layered on Cassandra, HBase, ScyllaDB or Bigtable.

nebulagraph vs janusgraph →
Apache HugeGraphGraph9.3

Apache graph database from Baidu with Gremlin and Cypher, pluggable backends and a distributed store.

nebulagraph vs apache-hugegraph →
Neo4jGraph61.2

The default property-graph database, with Cypher, a big ecosystem and a managed cloud.

nebulagraph vs neo4j →
GalaxybaseGraph0.0

Chinese native distributed graph database for HTAP graph workloads in banking and energy.

nebulagraph vs galaxybase →
UltipaGraph0.0

Commercial distributed graph database marketed as built natively for ISO GQL.

nebulagraph vs ultipa →

NebulaGraph FAQ

What is NebulaGraph?

NebulaGraph is a graph database by Vesoft Inc., first released in 2019. NebulaGraph is a distributed property-graph database from Vesoft that separates stateless query (graphd), Raft-replicated storage on RocksDB (storaged) and metadata (metad) services, so compute and storage scale independently. It targets very large graphs with millisecond lookups and is widely used in Chinese internet and finance companies. The open-source edition (Apache 2.0, nGQL with an openCypher-compatible subset) has not had a feature release since v3.8.0 in May 2024, while the commercial Enterprise v5 line was redesigned around native ISO GQL support. Pick it for scale-out graphs where you can live with weaker transactional guarantees.

Is NebulaGraph open source?

Yes. NebulaGraph is open source. License: Apache License 2.0 (open-source edition); Enterprise is commercial.

Does NebulaGraph support ACID transactions?

Partly. NebulaGraph offers limited ACID guarantees (for example, single-record or single-partition transactions), with strong consistency.

Does NebulaGraph scale horizontally?

NebulaGraph scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at large scale (≤ 1 PB).

How can I run NebulaGraph?

You can self-host it.

What is NebulaGraph best for?

NebulaGraph is a strong fit for social and relationship graphs at internet scale; risk control and anti-fraud in finance; and knowledge graphs for search and recommendation. Think twice for workloads needing strict multi-statement transactions.

What are the best alternatives to NebulaGraph?

Common alternatives to NebulaGraph include TigerGraph, JanusGraph, Apache HugeGraph, Neo4j and Galaxybase. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

How popular is NebulaGraph?

NebulaGraph ranks #183 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (18.1/100), and #15 among graph databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.