Knowledge graph and ontology platforms compared
Two different things share the word “ontology”: the W3C standards stack (Ontology, OWL, RDF) and product-level “business ontologies” that bind definitions to enterprise data. Knowledge graphs for retrieval are covered in GraphRAG.
| Platform | What “ontology” means | Data stays where | Actions / writeback | Status (fetched 2026-10-07) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palantir Ontology (palantir-foundry-and-aip) | Object, link, action types, functions | Integrated into Foundry datasets | Yes: action types submit governed edits | Per Palantir docs; production status not dated here; proprietary |
| Microsoft Fabric IQ ontology (microsoft-fabric) | Entity types, properties, relationships, metrics, rules, namespaces bound to data | Yes, virtual layer over OneLake, semantic models etc. | Not documented as writeback; context for agents and dashboards | Preview per Microsoft Learn page dated 2026-09-15; imports and exports RDF/Turtle/OWL; old experience retires 2027-01-31 |
| Databricks (Genie, databricks-genie and databricks-ai-bi) | Genie Ontology (per the Databricks AI/BI release notes: “Genie Ontology enabled by default (Public Preview)” on 2026-08-13; ontology snippets Public Preview since 2026-07-02 and available to all customers on 2026-08-13; Pages, Beta since 2026-08-12, are the human-modeled layer): “a unified context layer that gives Genie a business-aware map of your organization”; plus curated semantics (metric views, instructions) in Genie Agents, governed by Unity Catalog | Lakehouse, plus 50+ connected systems per launch coverage | Read-focused context and Q&A; agent mode is GA, actions run through tools and MCP | Public Preview (Ontology and snippets); checked against Databricks release notes 2026-10-07, connected-source list from a conference recap (secondary) |
| Neo4j | Property graph, Cypher; no built-in business ontology found in the docs opened | Inside the graph DB | Database writes | Property graph database (docs) |
| Stardog | RDF knowledge graph, SPARQL and GraphQL, OWL reasoning, virtual graphs | Virtual graphs query data in place | Database writes | Voicebox NL interface (docs) |
| TigerGraph | Property graph, GSQL, OpenCypher | In TigerGraph | Database writes | GraphRAG tooling, vector search; Savanna managed and self-managed DB (docs) |
Reading the differences (author’s synthesis, opinion)
- Standards-based vs product-based: Stardog and Fabric (import/export) speak RDF/OWL; Palantir’s model is its own.
- Virtual vs ingested: Fabric and Stardog emphasise querying data in place; Palantir’s ontology is described as integrated with Foundry datasets (docs).
- Actions vs context: Palantir couples ontology with actions and functions that change state; Fabric ontology, per its docs, supplies context for agents and dashboards. Graph DBs give traversal; business governance on top is not documented in the pages opened.
- GraphRAG needs a graph store (Neo4j, TigerGraph, Stardog) or a graph layer (Fabric Graph, optional) while business ontologies help agents choose correct tables and metrics.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn Fabric ontology overview, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/iq/ontology/overview (2026-10-07)
- https://www.palantir.com/docs/foundry/ontology/core-concepts/ ; https://docs.stardog.com/ ; https://www.tigergraph.com/docs/ ; https://neo4j.com/docs/getting-started/ ; https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/genie/ (all 2026-10-07)
Open items
- Databricks Genie Ontology: the Public Preview label on 2026-08-13 applies to ontology snippets specifically (AI/BI release notes 2026), whole-product status not stated; Pages are Beta (2026-08-12); the list of 50+ connected systems comes from a conference recap, not from Databricks docs.
- No licence, edition or maturity comparison for Stardog/TigerGraph beyond docs pages.
- Re-checked 2026-10-07 (primary): https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/ai-bi/release-notes/2026 ; https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/release-notes/product/2026/august ; Microsoft Learn ontology page (ms.date 2026-09-15: preview, RDF/Turtle/OWL import, RDF/Turtle export, old experience retires 2027-01-31; entity types, properties, relationships, metrics, rules, namespaces all confirmed). Palantir, Stardog, TigerGraph, Neo4j doc sites load; Stardog Voicebox and TigerGraph OpenCypher/hybrid graph+vector search appear in their doc navigation.