Neo4j Aura Database April Release

The Neo4j Aura April release is now rolling out—starting with AuraDB Free and gradually extending to higher-tier instances.

This release focuses on strengthening GQL compliance, expanding GenAI capabilities with new AI token functions, and improving memory efficiency for complex queries.

🚀 New Cypher 25 Features (GQL Standards)

We are continuing our commitment to GQL (Graph Query Language) standards by introducing new predicates and statements that align Cypher with international standards:

IS LABELED / IS NOT LABELED
: New GQL-compliant predicates to test for node labels (equivalent to the existing
IS
and
IS NOT
syntax). More details on Cypher Manual.
FOR Statement
: You can now use the GQL
FOR
statement to extract individual rows from a list (the GQL equivalent of
UNWIND
).

🤖 New AI Token Handling Functions

To further support GenAI and LLM integration workflows, we’ve added two new functions to help manage context windows and token limits:

ai.text.chunkByTokenLimit
: Automatically split input strings into lists while respecting specific token limits. Link to Docs.
ai.text.countToken
: Easily estimate the token count of a given string directly within your query. Link to Docs.

📈 Performance & Infrastructure Improvements

Memory Optimization
: Significant reduction in memory usage for the
SHORTEST
statement and improved precision for memory tracking within the Top operator.
Parallel runtime
memory tracking enhancements: Improved the precision of memory tracking within the Top operation.
Detailed
version reporting
in query output: EXPLAIN and PROFILE output now consistently includes the underlying Neo4j version, reporting down to the point release.
Drivers
: Updated
neo4j-java-driver
and
netty-bom
.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

Vector Indexing
: Fixed an issue where quantized data in
vector-3.0
indexes wasn’t being utilized at query time. This fix reduces memory usage for vector searches without requiring an index rebuild.
RBAC/PBAC
: Resolved an error that occurred when running duplicate Property-Based Access Control commands containing temporal functions.
Show Databases
: Fixed an incorrect error message when passing a parameter with the incorrect type to SHOW DATABASES.
Stability
: Fixed a rare record format bug related to iterating relationships on nodes that concurrently become dense.
Pathfinding
: Fixed a bug where
SHORTEST
would occasionally omit valid paths when multiple targets were present.

For full details of all updates and fixes in this release, please visit: Release Notes: Neo4j Aura Database – April 2026.