GrapheneDB vs Graph Story on Heroku

I have no experience with Graph DB applications but I'm trying to write one. I intend to host on `Heroku`.

I can see there are 2 Graph DB service providers with free plans but I can't decide which one to use, they are both marketing themselves using different attributes, and I can't compare ! For example:

- **GrapheneDB** mentions only the node and relationship count limit, and the query time limit. But nothing about the storage limit.

- **Graph Story** mentions the RAM limit, `storage limit and data transfer limit.

Other properties are mentioned too but they aren't comparable between both providers.

Has anyone tried any of these services on `Heroku` and could share his experience please ?

**EDIT**: I found [this page][1] which give an idea about how much space does neo4j need.


[1]:

[To see links please register here]

Graph Story offers the following features that differentiate it from other offerings:

* Graph Story offers the Enterprise version of Neo4j
* There are no limits on nodes or relationships on the free plan
* Max query time is 30 seconds

You wouldn't want to use the free plan in production, of course, but it's excellent for proofs-of-concept, learning Neo4j, small hobby projects, etc.

(Full disclosure: I'm the CTO at Graph Story.)

I'll take a spin at answering this question by staying as much as objective as possible, as, I and some other frequent answerers here, have good relationships with both providers.

Both have their own pro's and con's, and I think looking only at the Heroku side is maybe not a good choice.

There is also one difference between both that you need to know, GraphStory provide Neo4j enterprise while GrapheneDB provide Neo4j Community, this is a fact. However I am personally thinking that if you run neo4j on heroku, then you don't need enterprise because "enterprise" users of Neo4j are using their own environment with clustering on servers with "real" RAM and SSD's, which in fact can be managed by both providers with a licence and support.

You speak about the storage limit. Well the storage depends about your amount of nodes, relationships and properties in the database, so if there is a limit of 1000 nodes you don't need to care about the storage limit I think.

I tried both on heroku, and except the nodes limit, there is not that much difference in matters of performance when you deploy free dynos.

If you are a startup, running Neo4j on heroku is great if you take the paid plan of course, both providers have cool support and both are rewarding their long term customers.


If you look only at the free dynos, then you don't need to care about the limitations, because it will just be LIMITED, in any way !


Outside of Heroku, here are some points I viewed :

1. GrapheneDB runs on all platforms including Azure which is a cool stuff
2. GraphStory runs enterprise so you can benefit from the high performance cache
3. GrapheneDB has an accessible API for creating neo4j servers on the fly and destroying it.
4. Depending of your location, you may want support from Europe or from US.
5. basic plans, on both, are suffering of some latency or boot time when not used for a long time
6. Both have support for spatial
7. Both are actors in the Neo4j community with cool stuff, you can meet them in real :)

Now, you can test them, both, for free !!!

I tried yesterday one CRUD application deployed in 2 Heroku app: the first with Graph Story and the other with GrapheneDB.

- I had monitored with NewRelic and I detected Graph Story app have a medium latency variable from 1 to 2 seconds, instead the GrapheneDB service need only from 20 to 40 ms to perform the same operations.

Graph Story latency:
[![Graph Story latency][1]][1]

GrapheneDB latency:
[![GrapheneDB latency][2]][2]

- I wanted to try a paid plan for some minutes in Graph Story, but for doing that you need to contact the assistance and waiting for an unknown time. Instead, GrapheneDB allow you to change plan autonomously without any issue.

- I tried to export db in Graph Story, but the operation is not in real time: You need to wait for a link dispatched via email. I initiate the operation for 2 times, but the email after 10 hours not yet arrived.
Instead in GrapheneDB the export is immediate without waiting anxious emails


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