delightful databases 
A curated list of delightful databases in all shapes and sizes, and all FOSS.
Table of contents
- Relational databases
- Key-value databases
- Document-oriented databases
- Column databases
- Graph databases
- Time series databases
- Datalog databases
- Multi-modal databases
- Special purpose
- Related delight
- Maintainers
- Contributors
- License
Relational databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| Dolt | A SQL database that you can fork, clone, branch, merge, push and pull just like a git repository. | Apache License 2.0 |
| DuckDB | An embeddable SQL OLAP Database Management System. | MIT |
| H2 | An embeddable RDBMS written in Java. | MPL 2.0 / EPL 1.0 |
| Lumo SQL | LumoSQL is a modification (not a fork) of the SQLite embedded data storage library, LumoSQL adds performance, security and privacy features, partly by adding multiple backend storage systems. | MIT |
| MariaDB | Community developed fork of MySQL server. | GPLv2 |
| MonetDBe | Embedded MonetDB with a Python frontend and fast Numpy/Pandas support. | MPL-2.0 |
| OrioleDB | A modern cloud-native storage engine (... and solving some PostgreSQL wicked problems) | MIT |
| PostgreSQL | Powerful, open source object-relational database system. | PostgreSQL Licence |
| rqlite | The lightweight, distributed relational database built on SQLite. | MIT |
| SQLite | Small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine. | Public domain |
| TiDB | An open source distributed HTAP database compatible with the MySQL protocol. | Apache License 2.0 |
| ts-sql | A SQL database implemented purely in TypeScript type annotations. | MIT |
| YugabyteDB | A high-performance, cloud-native distributed SQL database that aims to support all PostgreSQL features. | Apache License 2.0 |
Key-value databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| AntidoteDB | A planet scale, highly available, transactional database built on CRDT technology. | Apache License 2.0 |
| BadgerDB | An embeddable, persistent and fast key-value (KV) database written in pure Go. | Apache License 2.0 |
| bbold | An embedded key/value database for Go. | MIT |
| BonsaiDB | A developer-friendly document database that grows with you, written in Rust. | Apache License 2.0 |
| BuntDB | An embeddable, in-memory key/value database for Go with custom indexing and geospatial support. | MIT |
| CubDB | An embedded key-value database for the Elixir language. It is designed for robustness, and for minimal need of resources. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Goleveldb | LevelDB key/value database in Go. | BSD-2-Clause |
| Graviton | A simple, fast, versioned, authenticated, embeddable key-value store database in pure Golang. | GPLv3 |
| ImmuDB | A lightweight, high-speed immutable database for systems and applications. | Apache License 2.0 |
| KeyDB | Multithreaded Fork of Redis. | BSD 3-Clause |
| LevelDB | A fast key-value storage library written at Google that provides an ordered mapping from string keys to string values. | BSD 3-Clause |
| Pebble | RocksDB/LevelDB inspired key-value database in Go. | BSD 3-Clause |
| QDBM | A high-performance implementation of the dbm database engine. | LGPL-2.1 |
| Quadrable | Authenticated multi-version database: sparse binary merkle tree with compact partial-tree proofs. | BSD 2-Clause |
| Redis | Open source, in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache and message broker. | BSD 3-Clause |
| RocksDB | A library that provides an embeddable, persistent key-value store for fast storage. | GPLv2 |
| TerarkDB | A RocksDB compatible KV storage engine with better performance. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Tidis | Distributed transactional NoSQL database, Redis protocol compatible using tikv as backend. | MIT |
| Urkel | An optimized and cryptographically provable key-value store (i.e. an urkel tree). | MIT |
| YottaDB | A robust, multi-level, key-value high performance database for your critical applications. | AGPL-3.0 |
Document-oriented databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| CondensationDB | A zero-trust distributed database that ensures data ownership and data security. | Apache License 2.0 |
| CouchDB | Open source NoSQL document database that stores data in JSON documents accessible via HTTP. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Earthstar | Offline-first, distributed, syncable, embedded document database for use in p2p software. | AGPL 3.0 |
| FerretDB | A truly Open Source MongoDB alternative. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Lowdb | A small local JSON database powered by Lodash (supports Node, Electron and the browser). | MIT |
| NeDB | The JavaScript Database for Node.js, nw.js, electron and the browser. | MIT |
| noms | The versioned, forkable, syncable, decentralized database philosophically descendant from the Git version control system. | Apache License 2.0 |
| PouchDB | An open-source JavaScript database inspired by Apache CouchDB that is designed to run well within the browser. | Apache License 2.0 |
| RefineDB | A strongly-typed document database that runs on any transactional key-value store. | MIT |
| RethinkDB | Distributed, highly available, open-source database that stores schemaless JSON documents. | Apache License 2.0 |
| RxDB | A realtime Database for JavaScript Applications. | Apache License 2.0 |
| SirDB | A git diffable JSON database on yer filesystem. | AGPL-3.0 |
| SirixDB | An Evolutionary, Accumulate-Only Database System. | BSD-3 Clause |
| SleekDB | Pure PHP NoSQL database with no dependency. Flat file, JSON based document database. | MIT |
| TiKV | Distributed transactional key-value database. | Apache License 2.0 |
Column databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| Cassandra | Free and open-source, distributed, wide column store, NoSQL database management system. | Apache License 2.0 |
| FrostDB | Embeddable column database written in Go. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Scylla | NoSQL data store using the seastar framework, compatible with Apache Cassandra. | AGPL-3.0 |
Graph databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| Blazegraph | High-performance graph database supporting Blueprints and RDF/SPARQL APIs. | GPLv2 |
| BrightstartDB | A native .NET RDF triple store that uses LINQ for querying. | MIT |
| Cayley | Open source database for Linked Data. It is inspired by the graph database behind Google's Knowledge Graph (formerly Freebase). | Apache License 2.0 |
| Dgraph | Fast, transactional, distributed Graph Database with support for GraphQL-like query syntax. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Fortune.js | Non-native graph database abstraction layer for Node.js and web browsers. | MIT |
| Gaffer | A large-scale entity and relation database supporting aggregation of properties. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Gun | A realtime, decentralized, offline-first, graph protocol to sync the web. | Apache License 2.0 |
| JanusGraph | A highly scalable graph database optimized for storing and querying large graphs with billions of vertices and edges. | Apache License 2.0 / CC-BY-4.0 |
| NebulaGraph | A distributed, fast open-source graph database featuring horizontal scalability and high availability. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Neo4j | Highly scalable native graph database, purpose-built to leverage not only data but also data relationships. | GPLv3 |
| RecallGraph | A versioning data store for time-variant graph data. | Apache License 2.0 |
| TerminusDB | A model driven in-memory graph database designed for the web-age using JSON-LD exchange format. | GPLv3 |
| TypeDB | A strongly-typed database with a rich and logical type system. | AGPL-3.0 |
Time series databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| ClickHouse | ClickHouse is a column-oriented database management system (DBMS) for online analytical processing of queries (OLAP). | Apache Licence 2.0 |
| InfluxDB | Scalable datastore for metrics, events, and real-time analytics. | MIT |
| QuestDB | An open source SQL database designed to process time series data, faster. | Apache License 2.0 |
| TimescaleDB | Open-source database built for analyzing time-series data with the power and convenience of SQL. | Apache License 2.0 |
Datalog databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| Datahike | A durable datalog implementation, powered by an efficient Datalog query engine and adaptable for distribution. | EPL-1.0 |
| Datascript | Immutable database and Datalog query engine for Clojure, ClojureScript and JS. | EPL-1.0 |
| Datalevin | Simple, fast and durable Datalog database for everyone. Available for Clojure on JVM and GraalVM. | EPL-1.0 |
| Crux | General purpose bitemporal database for SQL, Datalog & graph queries. | MIT |
Multi-modal databases
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| ArangoDB | A native multi-model database with flexible data models for documents, graphs, and key-values. | Apache License 2.0 |
| BerkeleyDB | An embeddable database allowing developers the choice of SQL, Key/Value, XML/XQuery or Java Object storage | AGPL-3.0 |
| EdgeDB | A graph-relational database that takes the best parts of relational databases, graph databases, and ORMs. | Apache 2.0 License |
| FoundationDB | A distributed database designed to handle large volumes of structured data across clusters of commodity servers. | Apache License 2.0 |
| go-orbit-db | Go version of OrbitDB P2P Database on IPFS | Apache License 2.0 |
| Irmin | A distributed database that follows the same design principles as Git. | ISC License |
| LedisDB | A high performance NoSQL Database Server powered by Go. | MIT |
| OrbitDB | A serverless, distributed, peer-to-peer database based on IPFS | MIT |
| OrientDB | The most versatile DBMS supporting Graph, Document, Reactive, Full-Text, Geospatial and Key-Value models. | Apache License 2.0 |
| MartenDB | A .NET transactional Document DB and Event Store on top of PostgreSQL. | MIT |
Special purpose
| Website | Summary | License |
|---|---|---|
| eyros | A multi-dimensional interval database designed for peer-to-peer distribution and good for geospatial and time-series data. | Apache License 2.0 |
| IceFireDB | Distributed disk storage database based on Raft and Redis protocol. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Prometheus | A monitoring system and time series database. | Apache License 2.0 |
| SpiceDB | A Zanzibar-inspired database that stores, computes, and validates application permissions. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Vaxine | A rich-CRDT database that solves the global write-path latency problem for backend application. | Apache License 2.0 |
| Xbase | A collection of tools for manipulating Xbase type datafiles and indices. | LGPL-2.1 |
Related delight
- dbdb.io - A database of databases
Maintainers
If you have questions or feedback regarding this list, then please create
an Issue in our tracker, and optionally @mention one or more of our maintainers:
Contributors
With delight we present you some of our delightful contributors (please add yourself if you are missing).
License
