What is our primary use case?
I have been using TigerGraph for the last two years. The use case for TigerGraph is at quran.com, where we need to connect the mapping verse connections to model each verse as a node and the relationship between the verses, such as shared themes, concepts, and linguistic links. This creates a semantic network of the Quran, and I made a thematic visualization of the Quran for this structure.
First, I needed to define what kind of nodes and relationships our graph would contain using TigerGraph. For the verse, I made it Surah, including Surah number, verse number, Arabic text, and translation. Then I created a theme with the primary ID and the description. I created a unidirectional edge called has_theme from verse to theme, and then I created a unidirectional edge called related_to from verse to verse with relationship type, which could be a string such as same_theme, cities, or explains, and then the weight as a double.
In this schema, each verse is a vertex, each theme is a vertex, and vertices connect to themes through has_theme edges. Verses can also connect directly to other verses through related_to edges where they share semantic connections. I inserted data for verses sharing the same theme. I then wrote a query to find verses by theme using the TigerGraph GSQL query language to retrieve all verses connected to a specific theme. The visualization graph shows two circular nodes representing the verses, labeled such as 2:1, 3, and 3:200, and one center node representing the theme patient. Edges shown as arrows connect each verse to the patient node and also a direct edge between the two verses if the related_to connection was added.
What is most valuable?
The best features TigerGraph offers include, first of all, the performance and scalability, which is why we started using it. Then there is the modern hybrid engine for AI that moves beyond simple data connection to real on-the-graph RAG for explainable AI, and the developer and enterprise features like powerful query language, low-cost solution, and cloud-native deployment. Additionally, it seamlessly connects with the ultra-fast connectors for common data sources like Snowflake, Databricks, and Kafka, which we are using.
Regarding how TigerGraph has handled large datasets or high query loads in my experience, it demonstrates world record scale with the ability to process graph data containing large dataset sizes. In this context, we can increase throughput by adjusting concurrency settings for loading jobs and modifying the Kafka loader replica number configuration to increase the number of concurrent Kafka loading jobs beyond the default one. With the ultra-fast connector and Kafka integration, we can add the built-in primary TigerGraph Kafka connector, which requires nothing to install as it is based on a trusted Kafka Connect framework. The connector streams from one source data, such as our application stream, into TigerGraph on the internal Kafka cluster. A Kafka loading job ingests the messages into the graph dataset. This design allows for faster, scalable, and concurrent data streams from multiple sources and supports modern data formats.
GSQL is Turing complete and combines SQL-like syntax with procedural programming, supporting accum, post-accum, and order by with traversals. It also supports openCypher and ISO GQL for flexibility across teams. With cloud-native deployments like Savanna, TigerGraph Savanna offers separate storage and compute so you can scale resources independently and pause workspaces for cost savings. It includes automatic failover, high availability, and fine-grained role-based authentication out of the box.
The impact of TigerGraph has been significant. It reduced complex multi-join query times from minutes to milliseconds, enabled real-time fraud detection across billions of transactions, and cut development effort by over seventy percent because the graph traversal logic that previously required thousands of lines of SQL became just a few dozens of lines of GSQL. The ability to visualize connected data in GraphStudio helped business users discover hidden relationships, such as shared account identifiers that had gone undetected for years.
What needs improvement?
Every organization needs improvements. GraphStudio has UI/UX issues and bugs. The visual interface has several frustrating bugs, for example, graph exploration results sometimes disappear and node selection can be difficult when edges are very close together. Additionally, loading jobs created by GSQL do not appear in GraphStudio at all, forcing users to manage the UI and command line separately. A dark theme is also missing in the new versions.
Regarding query development, the query installation process can be painfully slow, with some users reporting that installed queries get dropped or hang, especially when the system is overloaded. Additionally, there is no way to create or replace a query directly, which complicates iterative development. Large result sets over two gigabytes cannot be paginated, requiring workarounds such as writing to files.
There are some missing modern developer features such as query profiling, and TigerGraph does not support openCypher syntax or interpret queries, and it failed to track create, update, and delete operations. The lack of built-in pagination for large REST API responses remains a pain point for building production applications. Integrating TigerGraph with popular Graph RAG frameworks has been challenging. The light-RAG integration suffers from performance issues due to inefficient per-node operations rather than batch processing. Microsoft's GraphRAG does not abstract the storage layer, so its output can be stored independently.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
TigerGraph is stable in my experience.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Regarding scalability, TigerGraph is exceptional as demonstrated by verified benchmarks. The performance scales horizontally while automatic partitioning maintains sub-second performance for deep multiple-hop traversals even as data grows and supports real-time streaming ingestion with over one hundred million updates per machine per hour.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support is better, and whenever I reached out, it was extremely responsive.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before choosing TigerGraph, we evaluated other options, including Amazon Neptune and Neo4j. Neo4j was the strongest contender given its mature ecosystem, Cypher query language, and strong community support. Neptune was also appealing for its managed and cloud-native architecture. However, TigerGraph's on-premises flexibility and proven performance at petabyte scale ultimately aligned better with our data sovereignty and performance needs, which is why we chose TigerGraph.
What about the implementation team?
I have been working in my field for more than six years. I started with front-end development and then moved towards back-end development and also worked on a couple of mobile apps and other areas such as DevOps, augmented reality, virtual reality, and some AI automations.
What was our ROI?
The documented ROI is substantial based on a Forrester Total Economic Impact study. We saved nine point six million dollars in increased profits over three years from the new products and services enabled by graph-powered insights.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding pricing and setup cost, I am not much aware of the details because I am handling the technical part of full-stack development, and the accounts team handles these matters. However, I can say that the Community Edition is completely free and supports production usage, and it is perfect for development and proof of concept work. For the cloud-based Savanna offering, free credits are provided to new users for a full year, allowing for thorough evaluation before any financial commitment. Moving forward, it works with a pay-as-you-go model.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing TigerGraph, we evaluated other options, including Amazon Neptune and Neo4j. Neo4j was the strongest contender given its mature ecosystem, Cypher query language, and strong community support. Neptune was also appealing for its managed and cloud-native architecture. However, TigerGraph's on-premises flexibility and proven performance at petabyte scale ultimately aligned better with our data sovereignty and performance needs, which is why we chose TigerGraph.
What other advice do I have?
Start with the Community Edition and then design your graph schema iteratively. Expect a learning curve with GSQL and test real-world scale early so you can plan your export strategy and engage with the TigerGraph solution team for any enterprise licenses. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises