What are the advantages of using Spring Data neo4j over just using neo4j directly?

Question

I am brand new to NOSQL databases (or any kind of database) and I need to build a graph database in Java. I have never used SpringSource before either. Will using Spring Data neo4j make the process of creating a graph database easier or will it complicate things? Should I just try to work with neo4j directly? Thank you very much.

Answer 1

It depends on your use-case. SDN is a good fit when you are already working in a Spring Environment and have a rich domain model which you want to map in the graph. SDN is a good fit in all the cases where you mostly work with a results of a few hundred or thousand POJO objects which have to interact with existing libraries, ui-layers or other application parts that deal with POJO's.

If you're not working in a Spring environment it is up to you, it adds some complexity in setup and dependencies. There are also other solutions like jo4neo or Tinkerpop Frames that work on top of Neo4j.

It is a slower than the native Neo4j API due to the indirection introduced.

For highest performance you can always fall back onto the Neo4j API.

In general the Core-API is fastest, a good thing in between is the cypher-query language which is very expressive.