Difference between using match({property}) and WHERE clause in Cypher

Question

I've noticed that match(a:Vegetable{name:'Cellery'}) return a and match(a:Vegetable) where a.name='Cellery' return a gives me the same result.

Are there any practical differences between the two? The first form seems to work well when you know the property value, but is there a way to use wildcards or a LIKE condition with it?

Answer 1

The EXPLAIN and PROFILE options show the execution plan of the query.

They show the exact same execution plan for both queries (on an empty database).

So performance-wise, the two notations should be completely the same.

The first form seems to work well when you know the property value, but is there a way to use wildcards or a LIKE condition with it?

That's correct, WHERE gives you a lot more flexibility. Basically, the MATCH clause only allows you to check for equalities that could be written as WHERE a.prop1 = value1 AND a.prop2 = value2 AND ... . Meanwhile, WHERE allows you a lot more: the AND / OR / XOR and NOT logical operators, checking for inequalities; using STARTS WITH , CONTAINS , ENDS WITH and regular expressions; checking for node types like WHERE (a:SomeLabel) or even checking if the variables of the match are part of a pattern like WHERE NOT (a)-[:SOME_REL]->(:SomeLabel) .