Neo4j Drivers and Integration

To build applications with Neo4j, you use official drivers that communicate with the database over the Bolt protocol. Neo4j provides drivers for all major programming languages.

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The Bolt Protocol

Bolt is Neo4j's binary protocol, optimised for graph database communication:

Feature	Description
Binary format	Efficient serialisation (faster than HTTP/JSON)
Connection pooling	Reuses connections for better performance
Encryption	TLS by default on AuraDB
Port	7687 (default)

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Official Drivers

Language	Package
JavaScript / TypeScript	neo4j-driver
Python	neo4j
Java	org.neo4j.driver:neo4j-java-driver
.NET (C#)	Neo4j.Driver
Go	github.com/neo4j/neo4j-go-driver

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JavaScript / TypeScript

Installation

npm install neo4j-driver

Connection

const neo4j = require('neo4j-driver');

const driver = neo4j.driver(
  'neo4j://localhost:7687',
  neo4j.auth.basic('neo4j', 'your-password')
);

// Verify connectivity
await driver.verifyConnectivity();
console.log('Connected to Neo4j');

Running queries

const session = driver.session();

try {
  // Read query
  const result = await session.executeRead(async (tx) => {
    return tx.run(
      'MATCH (p:Person {name: $name}) RETURN p',
      { name: 'Alice' }
    );
  });

  for (const record of result.records) {
    console.log(record.get('p').properties);
  }
} finally {
  await session.close();
}

Write operations

await session.executeWrite(async (tx) => {
  await tx.run(
    'CREATE (p:Person {name: $name, age: $age})',
    { name: 'Bob', age: 25 }
  );
});

Close the driver

await driver.close();

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Python

Installation

pip install neo4j

Connection and queries

from neo4j import GraphDatabase

driver = GraphDatabase.driver(
    "neo4j://localhost:7687",
    auth=("neo4j", "your-password")
)

# Verify connectivity
driver.verify_connectivity()

def get_person(tx, name):
    result = tx.run(
        "MATCH (p:Person {name: $name}) RETURN p",
        name=name
    )
    return [record["p"] for record in result]

with driver.session() as session:
    people = session.execute_read(get_person, "Alice")
    for person in people:
        print(person["name"], person["age"])

driver.close()

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Java

Maven dependency

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.neo4j.driver</groupId>
  <artifactId>neo4j-java-driver</artifactId>
  <version>5.14.0</version>
</dependency>

Connection and queries

import org.neo4j.driver.*;

try (var driver = GraphDatabase.driver(
    "neo4j://localhost:7687",
    AuthTokens.basic("neo4j", "your-password")))
{
    driver.verifyConnectivity();

    try (var session = driver.session()) {
        var result = session.executeRead(tx -> {
            var res = tx.run(
                "MATCH (p:Person {name: $name}) RETURN p.name AS name, p.age AS age",
                Values.parameters("name", "Alice")
            );
            return res.list(r -> r.get("name").asString() + " (" + r.get("age").asInt() + ")");
        });
        result.forEach(System.out::println);
    }
}

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Best Practices for Application Integration

1. Use Parameterised Queries