CognoDB vs Dgraph

CognoDB8.8Visit DDgraph8.5Visit

Higher score CognoDB #5 in Graph Database Hosting 8.8/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 2 of 3 features Visit CognoDB

vs

D Dgraph #8 in Graph Database Hosting 8.5/10 Open source ✓ 1 of 3 features Visit Dgraph

• CognoDB fits best

  Budget-conscious Cypher-compatible deployments

• Dgraph fits best

  Self-hosted teams needing scalable graph infrastructure

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Side by side

Feature	CognoDB 8.8/10 Visit ↗	DDgraph 8.5/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.8	8.5
Ranking	#5 in Graph Database Hosting	#8 in Graph Database Hosting
Best for	Budget-conscious Cypher-compatible deployments	Self-hosted teams needing scalable graph infrastructure
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Free
Starting price	$9/unit/mo	Open source
Free plan	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud, Self-hosted
Support	Email, Docs	Community, Docs
Built for	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features CognoDB 2/3 · Dgraph 1/3
High availability	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Automated backups	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Vector search	—	✓ (best)
Specs
Supported engines	CognoDB graph engine	Not checked yet
Query languages	Cypher	DQL, GraphQL
Deployment scope	Single-region	Not checked yet
Storage limit	2 GB	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Free plan includes Cypher, Neo4j drivers, backups and Terraform Imports data from warehouses, streams, object storage and table formats Supports traversal, BM25 full-text search and MCP-based queries	Distributed storage with DQL, GraphQL, and ACID transactions Graph traversal, shortest paths, filtering, and pagination Docker and Kubernetes deployment with vector similarity search
Cons	Instances run in a single selected region Vector search is not supported Dedicated hosting starts at $241 per instance per month	Self-managed deployment requires infrastructure ownership May not suit teams seeking broad integration coverage Cloud plan details are not part of the published product profile
Our verdict	CognoDB is a managed cloud graph database for applications built around nodes, relationships and traversals. It is aimed at teams that want Cypher over Bolt 5.0–5.4, compatibility with official Neo4j drivers, and provisioned instances… Read the review →	Dgraph is an open-source, distributed graph database for applications built around highly connected data. It supports Dgraph Query Language (DQL), generated GraphQL APIs, distributed ACID transactions, graph traversal, filtering,… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• CognoDB — where it wins

  • Free plan includes Cypher, Neo4j drivers, backups and Terraform
  • Imports data from warehouses, streams, object storage and table formats
  • Supports traversal, BM25 full-text search and MCP-based queries

  Where it doesn't

  • Instances run in a single selected region
  • Vector search is not supported
  • Dedicated hosting starts at $241 per instance per month

• Dgraph — where it wins

  • Distributed storage with DQL, GraphQL, and ACID transactions
  • Graph traversal, shortest paths, filtering, and pagination
  • Docker and Kubernetes deployment with vector similarity search

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-managed deployment requires infrastructure ownership
  • May not suit teams seeking broad integration coverage
  • Cloud plan details are not part of the published product profile

• CognoDB8.8/10 · Free plan

  A low-cost Cypher-compatible host with practical automation and single-region deployment.

  Visit CognoDBFull verdict →
• DDgraph8.5/10 · Open source

  An open-source graph database for connected data, transactions, traversal, and vector search.

  Visit DgraphFull verdict →