In a graph database, each node is a record and each arc is a relationship between two nodes. Graph databases are optimized to represent complex relationships with many foreign keys or many-to-many relationships.
Graphs databases offer high performance for data models with complex relationships, such as a social network. They are relatively new and are not yet widely-used; it might be more difficult to find development tools and resources. Many graphs can only be accessed with [REST APIs](#representational-state-transfer-rest).
*[Explanation of base terminology](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3342497/explanation-of-base-terminology)
*[NoSQL databases a survey and decision guidance](https://medium.com/baqend-blog/nosql-databases-a-survey-and-decision-guidance-ea7823a822d#.wskogqenq)