Neo4j: fastest way to find a node: by id function or index?

Question

Is it faster find a node by id function

MATCH (i:Item) WHERE id(i) = 2345 RETURN i

or by a property indexed?

MATCH (i:Item { name: "Foo"}) RETURN i

Profiling these queries I saw

• id function: 2 total db hits
• index: 1 total db hits

Aggravate

Searching Indexes will always be faster than anything else but what is your Question? – Pindaric

Is it find by id() faster than find by indexed property? – Aggravate

Just keep in mind that ID() can be recycled, so if you store it as a reference somewhere else the reference might be orphaned – Legroom

Thank you I know but this is not my case. Just in theory which is faster? I know for ex in orientdb the find by id is done in constant time – Aggravate

If you made the query MATCH (i) WHERE id(i) = 2345 RETURN i (i.e. drop the label on (i:Item) it would be a single db hit too. It has the effect of removing the Filter step after the NodeByIdSeek step. – Gombach

Answer 1

Find by id is always faster, as it directly points to the node-record.

Edulcorate

Answer 2

Faster to search nodes by id. The function id() is deprecated. Use the function elementId() instead.

Holtz