Amazon Neptune
Graph database
A managed graph database that stores data as vertices and edges and is queried with Gremlin, openCypher or SPARQL; well suited to data with dense, intertwined relationships.
- Cost$$ Medium
- Difficulty●●●●●
- Costs money when idle?Yes
- Managed by AWS
- In examsCLF · SAA
Think of it asLike a map of a friend network: quickly find "friends of friends" without flipping through each list.
When to use it
✓ Use it when
Multi-hop relationship queries: social networks, fraud detection, knowledge graphs, recommendations.
✗ Avoid it when
Ordinary tabular or key-value data → Aurora / DynamoDB.
Common uses
- Detecting fraud rings across accounts
- Product and friend recommendations
- Knowledge graphs for GraphRAG
What does it cost?
- Pricing model: Charged per instance hour or capacity unit (Serverless), plus GB stored, I/O and backups.
Related services
SAA-C03 study guide
Neptune is covered in these study modules: