An OGM is the part of your graph code you stop re-writing.

An object-graph mapper turns models into Cypher and records back into typed objects. You still get a graph. You lose the string-building, the unwrapping, and the schema bookkeeping.

Create one person.

neo4j-driver · hand-written

const session = driver.session()
const result = await session.run(
  'CREATE (p:Person { id: randomUUID(), name: $name, age: $age }) RETURN p',
  { name: 'Adam', age: 30 }
)
const adam = result.records[0].get('p').properties
// age comes back as a driver Integer, not a number

You also own: the uniqueness constraint, the length check on name, closing the session, and every query like this one.

neode

const adam = await neode.create(Person, { name: 'Adam', age: 30 })

Validation runs first, the constraint comes from the model, and you get a typed Person back.

Watch the Cypher it writes

One query per read.

Hydrating a movie and its cast by hand usually means one query for the movie and one more per related node. Eager loading and read-model decorators fold all of it into a single statement.

hand-rolled · 1 + N round trips

app

graph

Every extra edge to hydrate is another trip. Latency grows with the size of the answer.

neode · 1 statement

app

graph

@RelatedOne, @RelatedMany, @RelationshipCount, @Computed and @Expression all project into the same statement.

Errors you can switch on.

A typed taxonomy instead of parsing driver messages. Validation failures arrive together, before anything reaches the database.

ConstraintViolationError

A unique or exists constraint said no. Note that exists constraints need Neo4j Enterprise.

TransientError

Carries retryability flags, so a retry loop does not guess.

OptimisticLockError

Raised on a stale write when a model uses @Version.

A migration workflow for your schema.

Your models declare constraints and indexes. neode compares them with what is installed and walks you from one to the other.

installSchema()

Create constraints and indexes from your models.

inspectSchema()

Diff what is declared against what is installed.

schemaDrift()

List the differences as data.

formatSchemaDrift()

Render them for a person to review.

applySchemaDrift()

Bring the database in line.

Open the playground Migration guide