head to head · open source
neo4j vs ioredis
neo4j has 17,241 GitHub stars, 2,703 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. ioredis has 15,339 stars, 1,251 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. neo4j leads on adoption by 12% (17,241 vs 15,339 stars). neo4j is written in Java under GPL-3.0; ioredis is written in TypeScript under MIT. neo4j has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, ioredis 8%. ioredis was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| neo4j | ioredis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 15K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-10 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick neo4j if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ioredis if
- You want the ioredis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ioredis fits your workflow better
About neo4j
Neo4j is a Java graph database released under GPL 3.0 that stores data as nodes and relationships and queries it with Cypher, aimed at developers, data engineers, and platform teams building connected data applications who would otherwise model those relationships as tables and joins.
read the full neo4j overview →
About ioredis
ioredis is a robust, performance focused and full featured Redis client for Node.js, written entirely in TypeScript and released under the MIT licence, intended for Node.js developers and platform teams that need their applications to talk to Redis reliably.
read the full ioredis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is neo4j or ioredis more popular?
neo4j has 17,241 GitHub stars and ioredis has 15,339. neo4j has the larger community by that measure.
Are neo4j and ioredis free?
Both are open source. neo4j is licensed under GPL-3.0 and ioredis under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between neo4j and ioredis?
neo4j is written in Java and ioredis in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, neo4j or ioredis?
Choose neo4j if you want the larger community (17,241 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ioredis if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.