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The real problem with graph databases is that they do not scale because the algorithms used parallelize poorly. Partitioning graphs is a longstanding challenge in computer science.

It is literally equivalent to the NoSQL "we don't do joins" algorithm problem. Unlike most NoSQL databases, the basic operation of a graph database is built on join algorithms (edge traversal is a relational join). If you figure out how to parallelize ad hoc joins on large clusters then graph databases become a viable solution for non-trivial databases.



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