Which Triplestore for rapid semantic web development?

Question

Ease of installation/use is the most important factor here - not performance.

Small is OK as large datasets are not expected.

Answer 1

Old question, but just as an update:

I have tried Virtuoso, OpenRDF Sesame, and 4store (all in their June 2012 versions) and found 4store the nicest to work with, as loading data, starting and stopping the server, etc., is quite simple.

Answer 2

Check out the SWI-Prolog Semantic Web Library. Should be very easy to use, even with little knowledge of Prolog.

Answer 3

If you are a .NET developer you may be interested in Intellidimensions Semantic SDK. If you want to load a graph in memory and then execute SPARQL queries against that graph the code is as simple as:

var gds = new GraphDataSource();
gds.Read<RdfXmlReader>(File.ReadAllText(@"C:\graph.owl"));
Table results = gds.Query("select ?s ?p ?o where {?s ?p ?o} limit 10");

If you are a student or researcher they will usually provide a free license if you contact them.