[haikalpribadi]

Hi, sorry we didn't manage to clearly capture this question on our site. Grakn is not "just a graph database". Here are 4 key points on how Grakn is different from other databases (especially neo4j):

1. Operates as a database for both OLTP (traditional query transactions) and OLAP (distributed graph analytics as a language)

2. Has an ontology as a flexible object model (i.e. schema) with types, subtypes, rules and instances

3. Guarantees logical integrity of data with regards to the ontology (i.e. schema constraint, but on a much more expressive data model)

4. Reasoning query language, to retrieve explicitly stored data and implicitly derived information (i.e. infers types, relations, context, and hierarchies of rules, in real time OLTP).

GRAKN.AI has the logical integrity of SQL, which NoSQL and Graph databases lack. It has the data relationships like Graph databases, which SQL and NoSQL do not have. And it scales horizontally like NoSQL, which SQL and Neo4j could not do.

And here's a more detailed differentiator table with granular points: http://links.grakn.ai/362529/10476081

[ssijak]

Is it free and will it always be free? I am asking because you are a registered company and need to make money somehow (support or?). Would not commit to something that will ask a lot of money after 2 years. Looks promising, good luck :)

[haikalpribadi]

The technology has an opensource version and enterprise version. Let me explain..

GRAKN.AI is made of 2 core components:

1. Grakn: the storage (i.e. knowledge base) where you store data

2. Graql: the language to retrieve the data Both Grakn and Graql is opensource and will always be opensource, forever. Just like MySQL, Hadoop, Spark, etc.

GRAKN.AI Enterprise is a commercial distribution (which will be released in 3 months), which comes with:

1. Cluster manageent: monitoring and provisioning

2. Security: authenticaion and custom user access right (granular separation of access for users based on different portions of the data model)

3. Natural Language search: both fuzzy string matching and NLP search

4. Knowledge IDE: and IDE for UI-driven knowledge modeling, and IDE to develop the model, and all kinds of modeling and analysis tool to help you manage your knowledge base.

All 4 features above are not available in the opensource distribution. To get them, you need to purchase GRAKN.AI Enterprise. The user can decide to purchase them when they need them.

I hope that helps? Let me know if that makes sense. :)

[crypto5]

How would you compare your product with https://www.blazegraph.com/, which has similar feature set, but is much longer on market, and has wider adaptation(e.g. powers wikidata)?

[fppt]

Blazegraph at the core, is a property graph which persists into an RDF format. A property graph is a simple graph structure made up of vertices and edges. It does not inherently encapsulate any domain or knowledge.

Grakn sits a layer above this in that is a knowledge graph. You can think of a knowledge graph as a property graph consolidated by an ontology or schema which enables it to encapsulate domain specific information in a structured manner. This in turn enables more advance features such as the automatic resolution of data based on pre defined rules.

You could indeed build a knowledge graph using Blazegraph (or any other property graph) but you would have to go through all the pains of coming up with an integrated and flexible schema as well as a resolution mechanism. Grakn comes with these things out of the box.

So Grakn is not competing with Blazegraph but rather builds on the core principals used by Blazegraph, TitanDB, JanusGraph, and other property graph systems. It builds on it to provide a structured yet flexible graph as well as a built in resolution system.