Comparison of Relational Databases and Graph Databases

Question

Can someone explain to me the advantages and disadvantages for a relation database such as MySQL compared to a graph database such as Neo4j?

In SQL you have multipl

Answer 1

Graph databases are worth investigating for the use cases that they excel in, but I have had some reason to question some assertions in the responses above. In particular:

A relational database is much faster when operating on huge numbers of records (dan1111's first bullet point)

Graph databases are much faster than relational databases for connected data - a strength of the underlying model. A consequence of this is that query latency in a graph database is proportional to how much of the graph you choose to explore in a query, and is not proportional to the amount of data stored, thus defusing the join bomb. (Jim Webber's first bullet point)

In other words the more complex our queries and relationships get the more we benefit from a graph versus a relational database. (Uli Bethke's 2nd paragraph)

While these assertions may well have merit, I have yet to find a way to get my specific use case to align with them. Reference: Graph Database or Relational Database Common Table Extensions: Comparing acyclic graph query performance