Java-based Gremlin clients to use with Amazon Neptune

You can use either of two open-source Java-based Gremlin clients with Amazon Neptune: the Apache TinkerPop Java Gremlin client, or the Gremlin client for Amazon Neptune.

Apache TinkerPop Java Gremlin client

The Apache TinkerPop Java gremlin-driver is the standard, official Gremlin client that works with any TinkerPop-enabled graph database. Use this client when you need maximum compatibility with the broader TinkerPop development space, when you're working with multiple graph database systems, or when you don't require the advanced cluster management and load balancing features specific to Neptune. This client is also suitable for simple applications that connect to a single Neptune instance or when you prefer to handle load balancing at the infrastructure level rather than within the client.

Gremlin Java client for Amazon Neptune

The Gremlin client for Amazon Neptune is an open-source Java-based Gremlin client that acts as a drop-in replacement for the standard TinkerPop Java client.

The Neptune Gremlin client is optimized for Neptune clusters. It lets you manage traffic distribution across multiple instances in a cluster, and adapts to changes in cluster topology when you add or remove a replica. You can even configure the client to distribute requests across a subset of instances in your cluster, based on role, instance type, availability zone (AZ), or tags associated with instances.

The latest version of the Neptune Gremlin Java client is available on Maven Central.

For more information about the Neptune Gremlin Java client, see this blog post. For code samples and demos, check out the client's GitHub project.

When choosing the version of the Neptune Gremlin client, you need to consider the underlying TinkerPop version in relation to your Neptune engine version. Refer to the compatibility table at Accessing a Neptune graph with Gremlin to determine the correct TinkerPop version for your Neptune engine, then use the following table to select the appropriate Neptune Gremlin client version: