neo4j - labels vs properties vs relationship + node

Whether you should use a property, a label or a node for the category depends on how you will be querying the data.

(I'll assume here that you have a fairly small, fairly fixed set of categories.)

Use a property if you won't be querying by category, but just need to return the category of a node that has been found by other means. (For example: what is the category of the item with sku 001?)

Use a label if you need to query by category. (For example: what are all the foods costing less than $10?)

Use a node if you need to traverse the category without knowing what it is. (For example: what are the ten most popular items in the same category as one that the user has chosen?)

This blog post may also be helpful because of the benchmark it contains.

I modelled the ‘relationship’ in 4 different ways…

• Using a specific relationship type (node)-[:HAS_ADDRESS]->(address)
• Using a generic relationship type and then filtering by end node label (node)-[:HAS]->(address:Address)
• Using a generic relationship type and then filtering by relationship property (node)-[:HAS {type:“address”}]->(address)
• Using a generic relationship type and then filtering by end node property (node)-[:HAS]->(address {type: “address”})

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So in summary…specific relationships #ftw!