Data & AI
Databases
Relational, NoSQL, and NewSQL database systems powering modern applications
Overview
Databases are the foundation of nearly every software application, providing structured storage, querying, and retrieval of data. The landscape spans relational (SQL), document, key-value, graph, time-series, and vector databases.
Top Players
PostgreSQL
- Type: Relational (RDBMS), open-source
- Market Position: Most popular open-source RDBMS, #1 developer choice (Stack Overflow surveys)
- Key Strengths: Extensibility, JSONB support, full-text search, PostGIS (geospatial), robust ecosystem, ACID compliance
- Managed Versions: Amazon RDS/Aurora, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Database, Supabase, Neon
- Typical Users: Startups to enterprise, web applications, analytics
MySQL
- Company: Oracle Corporation (USA) / open-source
- Type: Relational (RDBMS)
- Market Position: Most widely deployed database globally
- Key Strengths: Proven at massive scale (Facebook, Uber), simple and reliable, broad tooling support
- Managed Versions: Amazon RDS/Aurora, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Database, PlanetScale
- Typical Users: Web applications, e-commerce, content platforms
MongoDB
- Company: MongoDB Inc. (USA)
- Type: Document database (NoSQL)
- Market Position: #1 document database, most popular NoSQL
- Key Strengths: Flexible schema, JSON-native, horizontal scaling, Atlas cloud service, aggregation framework
- Products: MongoDB Atlas (cloud), Community Server (self-hosted)
- Typical Users: Application developers, real-time analytics, content management
Redis
- Company: Redis Ltd. (USA/Israel)
- Type: In-memory key-value store
- Market Position: Most popular in-memory database / caching layer
- Key Strengths: Sub-millisecond latency, data structures (lists, sets, streams), pub/sub, caching, session management
- Products: Redis Cloud, Redis Stack, Valkey (open-source fork)
- Typical Users: Caching layers, session stores, real-time leaderboards, message queues
CockroachDB
- Company: Cockroach Labs (USA)
- Type: Distributed SQL (NewSQL)
- Market Position: Leader in globally distributed SQL databases
- Key Strengths: PostgreSQL-compatible, global distribution with low latency, strong consistency, zero-downtime migrations
- Products: CockroachDB Cloud, Self-hosted
- Typical Users: Global applications requiring strong consistency and resilience
Key Trends
- Serverless databases: Consumption-based pricing with auto-scaling (Neon, PlanetScale, CockroachDB Serverless)
- Vector databases: Purpose-built for AI/ML embeddings (Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, pgvector)
- Database branching: Git-like branching for database schemas in development workflows
- Multi-model databases: Single engines supporting multiple data models (relational + document + graph)