There are many options to use Neo4j, including a fully hosted cloud solution (AuraDB), local installations, and Docker containers.
In this lesson, you will explore some of these options.
Community and Enterprise Editions
There are two editions of Neo4j to choose from, the Community Edition (CE) and the Enterprise Edition (EE). The Enterprise Edition includes all Community Edition offers, plus extra enterprise requirements such as backups, clustering, and failover capabilities.
The Community Edition is a fully functional edition of Neo4j, suitable for single-instance deployments. It fully supports key Neo4j features, such as ACID-compliant transactions, Cypher, and programming APIs. It is ideal for learning Neo4j, do-it-yourself projects, and applications in small workgroups.
The Enterprise Edition extends the functionality of Community Edition to include key features for performance and scalability, such as a clustering architecture and online backup functionality. Additional security features include role-based access control and LDAP support, for example, Active Directory. It is the choice for production systems with requirements for scale and availability, such as commercial and critical internal solutions.
The Neo4j Editions documentation includes a comparison of the features available in each edition.
AuraBD
AuraDB is a fully managed cloud service that provides a Neo4j database as a service. It is a fully managed, scalable, and secure cloud database service that allows you to focus on building applications without worrying about the operational aspects of managing a database.
You can create a free Neo4j instance at console.neo4j.io and scale it up or down as needed. AuraDB is available in multiple regions, and you can choose the region that best fits your needs.
Installation
You can install Neo4j on most platforms, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. The Neo4j Installation documentation provides detailed instructions for each platform.
In addition, Neo4j provides a Desktop development tool that includes a local installation of Neo4j, a browser-based interface, and a set of tools to help you develop and manage your Neo4j databases. Installation and usage instructions are on the Neo4j Desktop download page.
Cloud deployments
Neo4j’s cloud marketplace listings represent a quick and easy way of getting started with graph databases on the cloud platform of your choice.
You can find more information in the Neo4j Cloud deployments documentation.
Docker
Neo4j provides Docker images for both the Community and Enterprise editions.
The Neo4j Docker documentation provides instructions on how to run, configure, and deploy Neo4j in a Docker container.
Get Started
The right Neo4j deployment option will depend on your requirements. Neo4j AuraDB and Neo4j Desktop provide the easiest way to start with Neo4j.
Summary
In this lesson, you explored the options for getting Neo4j, including the Community and Enterprise editions, AuraDB, local installations, cloud deployments, and Docker containers.