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Neptune

A fully managed graph database service from AWS supporting both property graph and RDF models. Available as Neptune Database (for transactional workloads) and Neptune Analytics (for analytical queries).

Overall rank
#4
First released
November 2017
License
Proprietary
Built with
C++

Details

Vendor
Amazon Web Services
Type
Multiple
Category
Enterprise
License
Proprietary
Language
C++
Query Languages
GremlinSPARQLopenCypher
Protocols
BoltHTTP/RESTSPARQL ProtocolGremlin (WebSocket)Gremlin (HTTP)

Feature scores

Community & Business

Active development
Updated within last 3 months
Commercial support
Paid support available
Live community
>75% of issues addressed
Open Source
0%
Closed source
Pricing
Pricing publicly available
Trendiness
Growing or stable trend

Deployment

Containerization
0%
No container image
Work as dedicated instance
Can run as standalone server
Work as embedded
0%
Standalone only
Testing in-memory version
0%
No in-memory option

Platform

Operating on Linux
Linux officially supported
Operating on Windows
0%
Not supported
SaaS offering
Cloud service available

Operations

Automatic updates
Automatic updates supported
Client side caching
Client-side cache available
Data versioning support
0%
No versioning
Live backups
Hot backup supported

Distribution

Cluster Re-balancing
0%
No auto-rebalancing
Data Distribution
0%
No sharding
High-Availability
HA mechanisms available
Query Distribution
50%
No description available
Replication support
Replication available

Developer Experience

Data types defined
50%
Basic data types only
Logging/Auditing
Event logging supported
Object-Graph Mapper
0%
No object mapper
Reactive programming
Reactive streams supported
Documentation up-to-date
Docs current with latest version
Binary protocol
Binary protocol available
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
Object-level locking
Multiple isolation levels
Multiple isolation levels
Read committed transaction
Read committed available
Transaction support
ACID transactions

Schema & Security

Constraints
Full constraint support
Schema support
50%
Constraints/triggers only
Secondary indexes
Secondary indexes supported
Server side procedures
0%
No stored procedures
Triggers
0%
No triggers
Authentication
Authentication supported
Authorization
Role-based access control
Data encryption
Data encryption supported
Sources 10 references

Protocols Bolt, Gremlin (WebSocket), Gremlin (HTTP), SPARQL Protocol, HTTP/REST

Bolt is TCP-only on Neptune (the WebSocket variant of the spec is not supported); Gremlin has both a WebSocket driver channel and a separately documented HTTPS REST endpoint; SPARQL is served over its own 1.1 Protocol HTTP endpoint. Kept HTTP/REST because it is independently justified by the openCypher HTTPS endpoint (a generic REST channel with no more specific vocabulary tag) and by the separate Loader/management HTTP API, not just as a stand-in for SPARQL or Gremlin. Rejected pass_B's drop of Gremlin (HTTP) and HTTP/REST.

License Proprietary

Neptune is a closed-source, fully managed AWS commercial service with no published source code or license file, so it is classified as Proprietary rather than under any open-source SPDX id.

Released 2017-11

Matches current value; a limited preview was launched at re:Invent on November 29, 2017, well ahead of the May 2018 general availability.

Language C++

AWS does not directly disclose Neptune's implementation language. Amazon's own paper on Poseidon, the engine behind Neptune Analytics, describes a C++ template-heavy codebase, and Neptune engineering job postings require C++ (or Rust) proficiency for the storage/compute core, so C++ is the best-supported inference for the primary engine language.

  • For these reasons, our code relies heavily on C++ templates. The templates implement the access patterns as defined and enumerated by the P8APL interface.
    Poseidon: A OneGraph Engine · reviewed 2026-08-02
  • 1+ years of experience in C++, Rust, Related programming language- Knowledge of database internals, query planning and optimization and/or storage performance and efficiency
    Software Development Engineer, Amazon Neptune - Job ID · reviewed 2026-08-02