RedisGraph

A graph database as a Redis module

RedisGraph

2009

229

RedisGraph

A graph database module for Redis

RedisGraph is now in maintenance mode.

As of July 5th, 2023 RedisGraph is no longer under active development. We do not plan to release new features (2.12 is the last feature-bearing release), but we will continue to release patches until January 31, 2025.

We are grateful to the RedisGraph community for their interest and support.

You can read more about the end of life of RedisGraph here.

RedisGraph is the first queryable Property Graph database to use sparse matrices to represent the adjacency matrix in graphs and linear algebra to query the graph.

Primary features:

Adopting the Property Graph Model
- Nodes (vertices) and Relationships (edges) that may have attributes
- Nodes can have multiple labels
- Relationships have a relationship type
Graphs represented as sparse adjacency matrices
OpenCypher with proprietary extensions as a query language
- Queries are translated into linear algebra expressions

To see RedisGraph in action, visit Demos.
To read the docs, visit redis.io.

Give it a try

Once loaded you can interact with RedisGraph using redis-cli.

Here we’ll quickly create a small graph representing a subset of motorcycle riders and teams taking part in the MotoGP league,
once created we’ll start querying our data.

With `redis-cli`

The format of results through redis-cli is described in the RedisGraph documentation.

$ redis-cli
127.0.0.1:6379> GRAPH.QUERY MotoGP "CREATE (:Rider {name:'Valentino Rossi'})-[:rides]->(:Team {name:'Yamaha'}), (:Rider {name:'Dani Pedrosa'})-[:rides]->(:Team {name:'Honda'}), (:Rider {name:'Andrea Dovizioso'})-[:rides]->(:Team {name:'Ducati'})"
1) 1) Labels added: 2
   2) Nodes created: 6
   3) Properties set: 6
   4) Relationships created: 3
   5) "Query internal execution time: 0.399000 milliseconds"

Now that our MotoGP graph is created, we can start asking questions, for example:
Who’s riding for team Yamaha?

127.0.0.1:6379> GRAPH.QUERY MotoGP "MATCH (r:Rider)-[:rides]->(t:Team) WHERE t.name = 'Yamaha' RETURN r.name, t.name"
1) 1) "r.name"
   2) "t.name"
2) 1) 1) "Valentino Rossi"
      2) "Yamaha"
3) 1) "Query internal execution time: 0.625399 milliseconds"

How many riders represent team Ducati?

127.0.0.1:6379> GRAPH.QUERY MotoGP "MATCH (r:Rider)-[:rides]->(t:Team {name:'Ducati'}) RETURN count(r)"
1) 1) "count(r)"
2) 1) 1) (integer) 1
3) 1) "Query internal execution time: 0.624435 milliseconds"

Building

Compiling

Requirements:

The RedisGraph repository: git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 https://github.com/RedisGraph/RedisGraph.git
On Ubuntu Linux, run: apt-get install build-essential cmake m4 automake peg libtool autoconf python3
On OS X, verify that homebrew is installed and run: brew install cmake m4 automake peg libtool autoconf.
- The version of Clang that ships with the OS X toolchain does not support OpenMP, which is a requirement for RedisGraph. One way to resolve this is to run brew install gcc g++ and follow the on-screen instructions to update the symbolic links. Note that this is a system-wide change - setting the environment variables for CC and CXX will work if that is not an option.

To build, run make in the project’s directory.

Congratulations! You can find the compiled binary at src/redisgraph.so.

Running tests

First, install required Python packages by running pip install -r requirements.txt from the tests directory.

If you’ve got redis-server in PATH, just invoke make test.

Otherwise, invoke REDIS_SERVER=<redis-server-location> make test.

For more verbose output, run make test V=1.

Building in a docker

The RedisGraph build system runs within docker. For detailed instructions on building, please see here.

Loading RedisGraph into Redis

RedisGraph is hosted by Redis, so you’ll first have to load it as a Module to a Redis server. Redis 6.2 is required for RedisGraph 2.12.

We recommend having Redis load RedisGraph during startup by adding the following to your redis.conf file:

loadmodule /path/to/module/src/redisgraph.so

In the line above, replace /path/to/module/src/redisgraph.so with the actual path to RedisGraph’s library.
If Redis is running as a service, you must ensure that the redis user (default) has the necessary file/folder permissions
to access redisgraph.so.

Alternatively, you can have Redis load RedisGraph using the following command line argument syntax:

~/$ redis-server --loadmodule /path/to/module/src/redisgraph.so

Lastly, you can also use the MODULE LOAD command. Note, however, that MODULE LOAD is a dangerous command and may be blocked/deprecated in the future due to security considerations.

Once you’ve successfully loaded RedisGraph your Redis log should have lines similar to:

...
30707:M 20 Jun 02:08:12.314 * Module 'graph' loaded from <redacted>/src/redisgraph.so
...

If the server fails to launch with output similar to:

# Module /usr/lib/redis/modules/redisgraph.so failed to load: libgomp.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
# Can't load module from /usr/lib/redis/modules/redisgraph.so: server aborting

The system is missing the run-time dependency OpenMP. This can be installed on Ubuntu with apt-get install libgomp1, on RHEL/CentOS with yum install libgomp, and on OSX with brew install libomp.

Using RedisGraph

You can call RedisGraph’s commands from any Redis client.

With `redis-cli`

$ redis-cli
127.0.0.1:6379> GRAPH.QUERY social "CREATE (:person {name: 'roi', age: 33, gender: 'male', status: 'married'})"

With any other client

You can interact with RedisGraph using your client’s ability to send raw Redis commands.

Depending on your client of choice, the exact method for doing that may vary.

Python example

This code snippet shows how to use RedisGraph with raw Redis commands from Python via
redis-py:

import redis

r = redis.StrictRedis()
reply = r.execute_command('GRAPH.QUERY', 'social', "CREATE (:person {name:'roi', age:33, gender:'male', status:'married'})")

Client libraries

Some languages have client libraries that provide support for RedisGraph’s commands:

Project	Language	License	Author	Package	Comment
jedis	Java	MIT	Redis	Maven
redis-py	Python	MIT	Redis	pypi
node-redis	Node.JS	MIT	Redis	npm
nredisstack	.NET	MIT	Redis	nuget
redisgraph-rb	Ruby	BSD	Redis	GitHub
redisgraph-go	Go	BSD	Redis	GitHub
rueidis	Go	Apache 2.0	Rueian	GitHub
ioredisgraph	JavaScript	ISC	Jonah	GitHub
@hydre/rgraph	JavaScript	MIT	Sceat	GitHub
php-redis-graph	PHP	MIT	KJDev	GitHub
redisgraph_php	PHP	MIT	jpbourbon	GitHub
redisgraph-ex	Elixir	MIT	crflynn	GitHub
redisgraph-rs	Rust	MIT	malte-v	GitHub
redis_graph	Rust	BSD	tompro	GitHub
rustis	Rust	MIT	Dahomey Technologies	Crate	Documentation
NRedisGraph	C#	BSD	tombatron	GitHub
RedisGraph.jl	Julia	MIT	xyxel	GitHub