The Limits of Relational Databases
Relational databases store data in tables and represent relationships via foreign keys and JOINs. For shallow relationships, this works well. But querying highly-connected data (like a social network six degrees deep) requires dozens of expensive JOINs, making it impractical.
Graph Database Use Cases
- Fraud Detection: Detect fraud rings by finding clusters of accounts sharing phone numbers, devices, or addresses.
- Recommendation Engines: Suggest products by traversing “customers who bought X also bought Y” relationship chains.
- Knowledge Graphs: Model complex domain knowledge with rich semantic relationships for AI applications.
# Cypher query to find fraud rings in Neo4jnMATCH (a:Account)-[:SHARES_DEVICE]->(d:Device)<-[:SHARES_DEVICE]-(b:Account)nWHERE a <> bnRETURN a, b, d