Self-Host Neo4j: Native Graph Intelligence in Your Data Center

Overview

Neo4j is the leading native graph database powering fraud detection, knowledge graphs, identity resolution, and recommendation engines. Running Neo4j yourself gives you unlimited flexibility to tune storage, wire in custom procedures, and keep sensitive relationship data on infrastructure you control.

Why Self-Host Neo4j?

• Sensitive Relationship Data – Store customer-to-account mappings, financial flows, or supply-chain provenance without sending graph edges to a SaaS.
• Full Cypher Power – Install Graph Data Science (GDS), Bloom, APOC, and custom plugins without waiting for hosted providers.
• Cost & Performance Control – Right-size hardware for write-heavy workloads, deploy near your applications, and avoid per-edge billing.
• Hybrid Deployments – Replicate between on-prem and cloud regions, satisfy residency requirements, and connect to private event streams.

Feature Highlights

🧠 Native Graph Engine

• Property graph model with ACID transactions optimized for traversals and path queries.
• Cypher query language reads like English, enabling rapid iteration for analysts.
• Built-in graph algorithms library (shortest path, pagerank, community detection).

🚀 Developer Experience

• Drivers for Java, TypeScript, Python, Go, .NET, and Rust with reactive streaming support.
• APOC library adds procedures for ETL, triggers, graph refactoring, and HTTP calls.
• GraphQL integration via @neo4j/graphql auto-generates schema resolvers from Cypher.

🛡️ Enterprise-Grade Tooling

• Role-based auth, LDAP/AD integration, Kerberos, and multi-database support (Neo4j Enterprise).
• Online backups, clustering (Causal Clusters), and Fabric for sharding or federated querying.
• Neo4j Bloom delivers no-code graph exploration for analysts.

Deployment Options

Docker Compose (Single Instance)

version: '3.8'
services:
  neo4j:
    image: neo4j:5.18
    container_name: neo4j
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      NEO4J_AUTH: neo4j/very-secret-password
      NEO4J_dbms_memory_pagecache_size: 2G
      NEO4J_server_memory_heap_max__size: 4G
      NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT: "yes"
      NEO4J_PLUGINS: '["apoc", "graph-data-science"]'
    ports:
      - '7474:7474' # HTTP
      - '7687:7687' # Bolt
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - ./logs:/logs
      - ./plugins:/plugins

1. Replace the default password after boot via cypher-shell "ALTER CURRENT USER SET PASSWORD".
2. Mount plugins/ if you need custom stored procedures.
3. Snapshot ./data for backups or seed environments with NEO4J_dbms_backup_enabled=true.

Docker Compose (Causal Cluster)

• Run three core members + read replicas.
• Expose the discovery service (5000-6000/tcp), Bolt (7687), and routing load balancer.
• Use NEO4J_server_cluster_system__database_mode=PRIMARY or SECONDARY per role.
• Front with HAProxy or Envoy to route Bolt/HTTP to the available cores.

Kubernetes

Use the Neo4j Helm chart or the official operator:

helm repo add neo4j https://neo4j.github.io/helm-charts/
helm install graph neo4j/neo4j \
  --set acceptLicenseAgreement=yes \
  --set neo4jPassword=Sup3rGraph! \
  --set core.standalone=true \
  --set core.resources.requests.memory=8Gi \
  --set core.persistentVolume.size=200Gi

• Use PersistentVolumeClaims backed by SSD/NVMe for low-latency traversals.
• Configure PodDisruptionBudgets and anti-affinity so cluster members land on different nodes.
• Terminate TLS at the Ingress or run certificates inside the pods using cert-manager.

Data Import & Tooling

• Use neo4j-admin database import full for bulk CSV loads; it bypasses transaction logs and is ~10x faster than Cypher LOAD CSV.
• Stream data from Kafka with Neo4j Streams or Debezium connectors.
• Model knowledge graphs via neosemantics (n10s) for RDF/OWL interoperability.
• Build repeatable migrations with Liquibase + the Neo4j extension or graph-migrations.

Security Hardening

• Enforce TLS on both HTTP and Bolt ports (server.bolt.tls_level=REQUIRED).
• Integrate with LDAP/AD for centralized users, map groups to database roles.
• Restrict APOC procedures you expose (apoc.export.file.enabled=false unless needed).
• Disable remote shell (dbms.shell.enabled=false) and listen only on private interfaces.
• Rotate admin passwords automatically via Kubernetes secrets or Vault agents.

Performance & Capacity Planning

• Size heap memory to 50% of container RAM (but stay <32G to keep compressed pointers).
• Allocate page cache to cover the working graph; monitor neo4j.page_cache.evictions.
• Prefer relationship-heavy models (avoid star nodes) and index both ends of frequent MATCH patterns.
• Batch writes using UNWIND + parameters to reduce transaction overhead.
• Use Fabric or read replicas to isolate analytical workloads from transactional traffic.

Monitoring & Operations

• Export metrics via Prometheus (JMX or Neo4j Metric Extension) and visualize in Grafana.
• Track heap, page cache, Bolt sessions, GC pauses, and query latency distributions.
• Enable query logging with thresholds to spot expensive MATCH patterns.
• Schedule online backups (neo4j-admin database backup --check-consistency=true) and store copies off-site.
• Run periodic consistency checks in staging before upgrading versions.

Common Use Cases

Self-hosting Neo4j ensures your graph workloads stay compliant, high-performance, and fully customizable—from the Cypher surface down to the storage engine.