We have noticed some performance issues after migrating from Neo4j version 4 to version 5. I have reviewed the indexing, and it appears to be the same as before. Could you please suggest any solutions or steps we can follow to improve performance and optimize the overall application? Thank you in…

@zil.darji are there any further details what Neo4j v4.x did you previously run? what version of Neo4j v5 did you upgrade to? is this for all queries are slower or specific queries? if specific can you share cypher and plan from the v4 experience vs the v5 experience?

@dana_canzano , what Neo4j v4.x did you previously run?: 4.4.5 what version of Neo4j v5 did you upgrade to?: 5.26.0 All queries

@zil.darji is there any detail of how much performance decreased? i.e. under 4.4.5 the query ran in 100ms but under 5.26.0 it ran in ??? ms? did you migrate to block format? Store formats - Operations Manual ?

Hi @dana_canzano , I'm not entirely sure about the exact timing, as it varies depending on the queries. For example, queries that previously took around 100ms are now taking approximately 150ms, and those that took 1.2s are now taking around 2.5s. During the migration process, I took a dump from the…

@zil.darji cypher statement show DATABASE yield name, store; will report the database name and record format. Does this report block?

@dana_canzano I ran the following Cypher query to check the database configuration: SHOW DATABASES YIELD name, store; The result shows that both the neo4j and system databases are using the record-aligned-1.1 store format, which is expected and aligns with the standard format used in Neo4j 5.x. ╒…

@zil.darji The result shows that both the neo4j and system databases are using the record-aligned-1.1 store format, which is expected and aligns with the standard format used in Neo4j 5.x. ok. but this is in contrast to your prior comment of [image] zil.darji: So, if I'm not mistaken, it'…

@dana_canzano Yes, you're right — I made a mistake in my earlier comment as I wasn’t fully aware of the store format details at that time. Now that I understand it better, I’d like to clarify — is the store format actually contributing to the performance issue we’re seeing? Also, could you please…

@zil.darji You shouldnt have to migrate to block as performance from v4 to v5 should be equivalent if not better. However moving to block may introduce better performance. So back to why is v4 'faster' than v5? Do you still have the v4 environment available such that you could compare. a.…

@dana_canzano I tried changing the database store format from "aligned" to "blocks" in my local environment, but I didn’t observe any significant improvement in query performance. Also, I currently don’t have access to a v4 environment—otherwise, I would have tested it there as well.

Performance issue after upgrading neo4j v4 to v5

Neo4j Graph Platform Aura & Cloud

zil.darji (Zil Darji) June 12, 2025, 10:10am 12

Hi @dana_canzano ,

While upgrading the database version, I also updated the Neo4j driver to the latest version. My project uses GraphQL as well, and I'm currently running it on Node.js v16.4.2.

I’m wondering—could the issue be related to the older versions of the GraphQL-related packages? Here’s what I’m currently using:

"express-graphql": "^0.12.0",
"graphql": "^14.7.0",
"graphql-tools": "^7.0.1",
"neo4j-driver": "^5.28.0",
"neo4j-graphql-js": "^2.14.3"

Is it possible that this version mismatch—especially with the older GraphQL libraries—might be contributing to the issue?

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Performance issue after upgrading neo4j v4 to v5

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