A direct comparison of the three primary graph representations.

  • Remember the key variables: $n = |V|$ is the number of vertices, and $m = |E|$ is the number of edges. The relationship between $n$ and $m$ determines if a graph is sparse or dense.
  • The best choice depends on your graph's density and the operations you need to perform most frequently. There is no single "best" representation for all use cases.