YugabyteDB

Scalable PostgreSQL-compatible distributed SQL for cloud-native workloads

YugabyteDB delivers PostgreSQL-level functionality with strong consistency, horizontal scaling, and multi-region resilience, enabling real-time OLTP applications to grow across clouds and Kubernetes clusters.

Overview

Highlights

PostgreSQL 15 compatibility with full YSQL feature set

Distributed ACID transactions using Raft and hybrid logical clocks

Native multi-region, multi-cloud deployment with automatic failover (RPO 0, RTO ≈ 3 s)

Advanced query engine with Cost‑Based Optimizer, parallel execution, bitmap and HNSW vector indexes

Pros

Strong consistency without sacrificing horizontal scalability
Familiar PostgreSQL interface reduces learning curve
Built-in resilience and zero-data-loss recovery
Open-source license with enterprise‑grade features

Considerations

Operational complexity of managing distributed clusters
Higher resource usage compared to single-node databases
Limited support for some PostgreSQL extensions
Performance overhead for cross-region latency-sensitive workloads

Managed products teams compare with

When teams consider YugabyteDB, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.

Amazon Aurora

MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible cloud relational database service offering high performance and high availability

CockroachDB

Distributed SQL database designed for horizontal scale and high resilience across regions

PlanetScale

Serverless MySQL platform with Git-like branching

Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.

Fit guide

Great for

Real-time e-commerce platforms requiring global low-latency reads
IoT streaming pipelines that need fault-tolerant transactional storage
Microservice architectures deployed on Kubernetes across multiple clouds
AI/ML applications leveraging pgvector for vector similarity search

Not ideal when

Small, single-node workloads where simplicity outweighs scalability
Legacy applications tightly coupled to proprietary database features
Environments with strict on-prem hardware constraints and no cloud
Use cases demanding sub-millisecond local latency without cross-region replication

How teams use it

Globally distributed e‑commerce checkout

Maintain ACID transactions across continents while serving fast read replicas, ensuring zero data loss during regional outages.

Real-time sensor data ingestion for smart cities

Ingest high‑velocity IoT streams with strong consistency and automatic scaling, enabling immediate analytics and alerts.

AI recommendation engine with vector search

Store embeddings using pgvector and HNSW indexes for rapid similarity queries, powering personalized recommendations.

Multi‑cloud microservice data layer

Deploy YugabyteDB on Kubernetes clusters in AWS and GCP, achieving seamless failover and consistent data across clouds.

Tech snapshot

C30%

C++24%

Java15%

PLpgSQL11%

Rust7%

TypeScript4%

Frequently asked questions

Is YugabyteDB compatible with existing PostgreSQL tools?

Yes, the YSQL API reuses PostgreSQL’s query layer, so standard drivers, ORMs, and extensions that are supported by PostgreSQL 15 work with YugabyteDB.

How does YugabyteDB ensure data durability during failures?

It uses Raft consensus for replication, providing RPO 0 (no data loss) and automatic failover with recovery typically within three seconds.

Can I run YugabyteDB on Kubernetes?

Fully supported; YugabyteDB runs as containerized pods and can span multiple zones, regions, or clouds within a Kubernetes cluster.

What licensing governs YugabyteDB?

The database is released under the Apache 2.0 license, offering permissive open-source usage.

Does YugabyteDB support vector similarity search?

Yes, the recent release adds pgvector with HNSW indexing, enabling efficient high-dimensional vector queries.

Project at a glance

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