Database Reference
In-Depth Information
10.3.5. Server plugins and unmanaged extensions
Neo4j provides two main mechanisms for avoiding the verbose and chatty nature of the
basic REST API (aside from the Cypher REST endpoint): server plugins and unmanaged
extensions, as highlighted in
figure 10.6
.
Figure 10.6. Accessing Neo4j via server plugins and unmanaged extensions
These two options allow you to write custom server-side code to supplement or enhance
the existing REST API provided out of the box, and they're sometimes compared to the
stored procedures
of the relational database world. They attempt to get around some of the
performance limitations inherent in the backward-and-forward nature of the server mode
by providing a way to offload some of the heavy-lifting logic to the server side, with only
the final result needing to be sent back to the client. Unmanaged extensions, in particular,
provide the opportunity to define a more domain-friendly REST API. You'll be seeing ex-
amples of how to write server plugins and unmanaged extensions in
sections 10.5.3
and
10.5.4
when we show you how to get the most out of the server setup. Before that, we're
going to look at comparisons between embedded and server modes.
