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Google Cayley

An open-source RDF graph database inspired by the graph database behind Google's Knowledge Graph (Freebase). Features pluggable backend storage and multiple query language support.

Visit website GitHub 15.1k stars
Overall rank
#62
First released
June 2014
License
Apache-2.0
Built with
Go

Details

Vendor
Cayley Community
Type
RDF
Category
Emerging
Status
Inactive — No significant development activity since 2020.
License
Apache-2.0
Language
Go
Query Languages
GizmoGraphQLMQL
Protocols
HTTP/REST

Feature scores

Community & Business

Active development
50%
Updated 3-6 months ago
Commercial support
0%
No commercial support
Live community
0%
No community activity data
Open Source
✓
Open source license
Pricing
0%
No pricing information
Trendiness
75%
No description available

Deployment

Containerization
✓
Docker image available
Work as dedicated instance
✓
Can run as standalone server
Work as embedded
✓
Can embed in application
Testing in-memory version
✓
In-memory mode available

Platform

Operating on Linux
✓
Linux officially supported
Operating on Windows
0%
Not supported
SaaS offering
0%
Self-hosted only

Operations

Automatic updates
0%
Manual updates only
Client side caching
50%
No description available
Data versioning support
0%
No versioning
Live backups
0%
No live backups

Distribution

Cluster Re-balancing
0%
No auto-rebalancing
Data Distribution
✓
Data sharding supported
High-Availability
50%
No description available
Query Distribution
✓
Distributed query execution
Replication support
✓
Replication available

Developer Experience

Data types defined
✓
Composite data types
Logging/Auditing
✓
Event logging supported
Object-Graph Mapper
✓
OGM/ORM available
Reactive programming
0%
No reactive programming
Documentation up-to-date
✓
Docs current with latest version
Binary protocol
0%
Text-based protocols only
CLI
✓
Command-line interface
GUI
✓
Visual interface available

Data Model

Multi-database
0%
Graph-only
Graph-native data
✓
Native graph storage
REST API
✓
REST endpoint available
Query Language
✓
Standard query language (Cypher/Gremlin)

Transactions

Granular locking
0%
No granular locking
Multiple isolation levels
0%
Read uncommitted only
Read committed transaction
0%
Not available
Transaction support
✓
ACID transactions

Schema & Security

Constraints
50%
Uniqueness constraints only
Schema support
50%
Constraints/triggers only
Secondary indexes
✓
Secondary indexes supported
Server side procedures
0%
No stored procedures
Triggers
0%
No triggers
Authentication
0%
No authentication
Authorization
0%
No authorization
Data encryption
0%
No encryption
Sources 5 references

Protocols HTTP/REST

All query languages (Gizmo, GraphQL-inspired, MQL) and writes are served over a JSON HTTP API; a Go-library embedding mode also exists per the docs nav ('Quick Start As Go Library') but no citable quote was found for that specific claim.

  • Unless otherwise noted, all URIs take a POST command.
    HTTP Methods · reviewed 2026-08-02

Released 2014-06

Adds the month to the current year-only value: Google's own announcement post is dated June 2014 and the GitHub repository was created 2014-06-05.

Language Go

Confirms current value; stated directly by the original author in Google's announcement post.

License Apache-2.0

SPDX identifier as classified by GitHub from the repository licence file.