CognoDB vs NebulaGraph

CognoDB8.8Visit NebulaGraph8.7Visit

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

vs

NebulaGraph #6 in Graph Database Hosting 8.7/10 Free plan · 14-day trial Free planFree trial✓ 1 of 3 features Visit NebulaGraph

• CognoDB fits best

  Budget-conscious Cypher-compatible deployments

• NebulaGraph fits best

  Open-source distributed graph deployments

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature	CognoDB 8.8/10 Visit ↗	NebulaGraph 8.7/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.8	8.7
Ranking	#5 in Graph Database Hosting	#6 in Graph Database Hosting
Best for	Budget-conscious Cypher-compatible deployments	Open-source distributed graph deployments
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Free
Starting price	$9/unit/mo	Free
Free plan	✓	✓
Free trial	—	14 days
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud, Self-hosted
Platforms	Web	Web, Linux, Windows, macOS
Support	Email, Docs	Docs, Tickets
Integrations	21+ integrations	3 integrations
Built for	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features CognoDB 2/3 · NebulaGraph 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	nGQL, openCypher, ISO-GQL
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 horizontal scalability nGQL and openCypher-compatible query support Native vector search, algorithms, and visualization tools
Cons	Instances run in a single selected region Vector search is not supported Dedicated hosting starts at $241 per instance per month	Deployment choices may require more technical planning The product spans multiple editions and deployment models Narrow relational workloads may not need its graph-focused feature set
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 →	NebulaGraph is an open-source, distributed graph database for developers and organizations working with highly connected data. It represents entities as vertices and relationships as edges, then supports traversal and pattern matching… 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

• NebulaGraph — where it wins

  • Distributed storage with horizontal scalability
  • nGQL and openCypher-compatible query support
  • Native vector search, algorithms, and visualization tools

  Where it doesn't

  • Deployment choices may require more technical planning
  • The product spans multiple editions and deployment models
  • Narrow relational workloads may not need its graph-focused feature set

• CognoDB8.8/10 · Free plan

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

  Visit CognoDBFull verdict →
• NebulaGraph8.7/10 · Free plan · 14-day trial

  A flexible open-source graph database for distributed data and graph analytics.

  Visit NebulaGraphFull verdict →