New Amazon Neptune engine version delivers up to 9 times faster and 10 times higher throughput for openCypher query performance

Starting with the Amazon Neptune engine version 1.3.2.X, openCypher query performance is up to 9 times faster and provides up to 10 times higher throughput than previous engine releases. You can create a new cluster or upgrade to this release for faster query performance, more open source features, and additional benefits.

Neptune is a fast, reliable, and fully managed service that helps you build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets, such as knowledge graphs, fraud graphs, identity graphs, and security graphs. openCypher is an easy-to-use, declarative query language for property graph databases with a SQL-inspired syntax. This Neptune release enables AWS customers to have up to 10 times higher throughput for their applications, or for the same throughput to reduce the Neptune cost by using fewer or smaller Neptune instances. Selective, low-latency openCypher improvements can be up to 9 times faster. Beyond the low-latency query performance improvement, the release also includes additional performance enhancements, like a query plan cache that reduces the overall latency by caching the query plans and avoiding parsing and optimization for such repeated patterns. Support for TLS 1.3 and an extended support for datetime functionality are also part of this release. Integration with open source frameworks like LlamaIndex make it straightforward to use Amazon Bedrock and Neptune to build GraphRAG applications with openCypher. (For more details, see Announcing LlamaIndex support for Amazon Neptune to build GraphRAG applications.)

The openCypher query language is closely related to the emerging Graph Query Language (GQL) standard. GQL is a query language standard for property graphs that aims to bring the benefits of a standardized language to the graph database market, similar to how SQL has become the standard for relational databases. Adopting openCypher is the best path to GQL. By choosing a managed graph database service with openCypher like Neptune, you are well positioned with a future-proof graph querying experience as the GQL standard continues to evolve.

Migrating existing applications to use the openCypher language on Neptune is a straightforward process. The openCypher syntax is designed to be intuitive for developers familiar with SQL, making the transition seamless. Neptune provides comprehensive documentation, tips on migrating openCypher queries, and tools to guide you through the migration process, providing a smooth transition to the enhanced query performance and features available in the 1.3.2.X engine release.

The engine version 1.3.2.X is available in all AWS Regions where Neptune is available. To experience faster performance and higher throughput openCypher queries, upgrade your existing cluster to the latest 1.3.2.x version or create a new Neptune cluster. To learn more about the new release, see the 1.3.2.X release notes.

About the author

Andrea Nassisi is a Principal Product Manager on the Amazon Neptune team. His passion is democratizing technologies. He leads the product management of the Amazon Neptune Database and the open source projects like Graph Explorer, Neptune Export and the Neptune for GraphQL utility.