Neo4j Compatibility

CoordiNode is OpenCypher-compatible and supports common Neo4j workloads via the gRPC API. This page tracks what works today and what is planned.

Full Bolt protocol compatibility is planned for v1.2

The Neo4j wire protocol (Bolt) is not yet implemented. In this release, use the native gRPC API or any gRPC-compatible client.

Query Language (OpenCypher)

Feature	Status	Notes
MATCH / OPTIONAL MATCH	✅ Supported	Full pattern matching
WHERE (comparisons, boolean, IS NULL)	✅ Supported	All standard operators
RETURN / ORDER BY / LIMIT / SKIP	✅ Supported	With expressions and aliases
CREATE / MERGE / DELETE / DETACH DELETE	✅ Supported	Full write operations
SET / REMOVE	✅ Supported	Properties and labels
WITH / UNWIND	✅ Supported	Pipeline and list expansion
Variable-length paths *1..N	✅ Supported	Configurable; default max 10 hops
Shortest path	✅ Supported	BFS-based
CASE WHEN	✅ Supported	Simple and searched forms
Aggregations	✅ Supported	count, sum, avg, min, max, collect, stDev, percentile
x IN [...]	✅ Supported	List membership
STARTS WITH / ENDS WITH / CONTAINS	✅ Supported	Case-sensitive
Pattern predicates in WHERE	✅ Supported	WHERE (a)-[:R]->(b)
Map projection n { .prop }	✅ Supported
UPSERT MATCH (atomic)	🔷 Extension	Not in Neo4j Cypher
AS OF TIMESTAMP	🔷 Extension	Time-travel reads
vector_distance() / vector_similarity()	🔷 Extension	Native vector search
text_match() / text_score()	🔷 Extension	Native full-text search
point() / point.distance()	✅ / 🔷	point() is standard; Haversine implementation
EXPLAIN (logical plan)	✅ Supported	Via CypherService.Explain
EXPLAIN SUGGEST	🔷 Extension	Query advisor
CALL procedures	⚠️ Partial	Only db.advisor.suggestions() in this release
CALL {} subqueries	📋 Planned
FOREACH	📋 Planned	v1.0 milestone
LOAD CSV	📋 Planned	v1.2 milestone

Scalar Functions

Most Neo4j scalar functions are not yet implemented. See Functions reference for the full list.

Function category	Status
coalesce, toString, size, now, type, labels	✅ Supported
toInteger, toFloat, toLower, toUpper	📋 Returns null (planned)
length, abs, ceil, floor, round, sqrt	📋 Returns null (planned)
trim, substring, replace, split	📋 Returns null (planned)
head, tail, last, range, reverse	📋 Returns null (planned)
id, elementId, properties, keys	📋 Returns null (planned)

Data Types

Type	Status	Notes
String, Integer, Float, Boolean, Null	✅ Supported	Standard types
List	✅ Supported	Homogeneous or mixed lists
Map	✅ Supported	String-keyed maps
Point (spatial WGS84)	✅ Supported	Lat/lon coordinates
DateTime / Timestamp	✅ Supported	Microsecond precision, UTC
Duration	📋 Planned
Vector	🔷 Extension	Up to 65536 dimensions
Blob	🔷 Extension	Content-addressed binary storage

Indexes

Type	Status	Notes
B-tree (single property)	✅ Supported	Standard performance index
Composite (multi-property)	📋 Planned
Unique constraint	✅ Supported	Enforced at commit time
Sparse (skip nulls)	✅ Supported	CREATE SPARSE INDEX
Partial (filtered)	✅ Supported	CREATE INDEX ... WHERE predicate
Text index (full-text BM25)	✅ Supported	30+ languages, fuzzy, phrase
Vector index (HNSW)	🔷 Extension	Approximate nearest neighbor
Vector index (Flat/exact)	🔷 Extension	Exact NN for small datasets
Encrypted index (SSE)	🔷 Extension	Searchable symmetric encryption
TTL index	🔷 Extension	Automatic expiration (planned DDL)
Point index (spatial R-tree)	📋 Planned	v1.0 milestone
Lookup index	📋 Planned	Neo4j-specific

Protocols

Protocol	Status	Notes
gRPC (port 7080)	✅ Active	Native high-performance API
HTTP/REST (port 7081)	📋 Planned	JSON transcoding of gRPC endpoints
Bolt (Neo4j wire protocol, port 7082)	📋 Planned v1.2	Neo4j drivers will connect without code changes
WebSocket (port 7083)	📋 Planned	Subscriptions and live queries

Drivers

Driver	Status	Notes
Any gRPC client	✅ Supported	Proto definitions at github.com/structured-world/coordinode-proto-ce
Generated Rust client	✅ Supported	From proto
Neo4j Python driver	📋 Planned v1.2	Via Bolt protocol
Neo4j JavaScript driver	📋 Planned v1.2	Via Bolt protocol
Neo4j Java driver	📋 Planned v1.2	Via Bolt protocol
Neo4j Go driver	📋 Planned v1.2	Via Bolt protocol

CoordiNode vs Neo4j

CoordiNode has, Neo4j doesn't:

• Native vector search — HNSW indexes on nodes AND edges. No plugin required.
• Encrypted search (SSE) — query encrypted fields without decryption. Programmatic API in this release; Cypher DDL planned.
• Time-travel queries (AS OF TIMESTAMP) — read historical snapshots within 7-day retention.
• Partial indexes — index with a WHERE predicate. Only matching nodes are indexed.
• TTL indexes — automatic node/subtree expiration. Background reaper every 60s.
• Built-in query advisor (EXPLAIN SUGGEST) — detects missing indexes, unbounded traversals, Cartesian products, and KNN patterns without vector indexes.
• Free 3-node HA clustering — Raft consensus. Neo4j charges per-node for equivalent clustering.
• UPSERT MATCH — atomic upsert without TOCTOU race conditions.
• Document properties — nested maps with dot-notation access and concurrent-safe array mutations.
• Vectors on edges — SIMILAR edges can store embeddings.
• SET ON VIOLATION SKIP — skip constraint-violating nodes without aborting the query.
• MERGE NODES — native first-class entity-resolution / deduplication. MERGE NODES (a, b) INTO a TRANSFER EDGES FROM b TO a collapses two nodes in a single transaction with property merge (KEEP FIRST / KEEP LAST / COALESCE / SET) and duplicate-edge handling (KEEP BOTH / MERGE PROPERTIES / KEEP TARGET). Neo4j requires the APOC plugin (apoc.refactor.mergeNodes()), which is fragile under clustering.
• Native triggers — CREATE / DROP / SHOW / ALTER TRIGGER as first-class Cypher clauses (not a plugin). Definitions persist in the schema partition, replicate through Raft, survive backups. BEFORE / AFTER COMMIT timing, per-trigger ON ERROR PROPAGATE | RETRY n [WITH BACKOFF ms] | DEAD_LETTER, plus four-layer cycle protection: L1 cascade depth + L2 unique-trigger fanout (per-trigger overrides CASCADE_LIMIT / CASCADE_FANOUT), L3 static cycle detection at DDL (planned), L4 auto-disable circuit breaker (planned). Neo4j's equivalent is APOC's apoc.trigger.add() — a JAR that breaks under clustering, doesn't survive neo4j-admin restore, and has no cycle protection beyond per-trigger MAXDEPTH.

Neo4j has, CoordiNode doesn't (yet):

• Bolt protocol (📋 planned v1.2)
• APOC procedures library (partial support 📋 planned)
• LOAD CSV (📋 planned v1.2)
• GDS (Graph Data Science) library
• Neo4j Browser / Bloom visualization
• Cypher subqueries (CALL {} syntax) (📋 planned)
• Most scalar functions (toLower, toInteger, abs, etc.) (📋 planned)
• HTTP/JSON API (📋 planned v1.1)
• WebSocket subscriptions (📋 planned)
• Composite indexes
• Cypher duration type