{"slug": "cedardb", "name": "CedarDB", "category": "databases", "category_name": "Databases", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 4.451, "rising": 1.35, "first": "2025-12-20", "latest": "2026-10-10", "why": "I wish more database engines used a Task-based design like Umbra / CedarDB.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I wish more database engines used a Task-based design like Umbra / CedarDB.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "cedardb.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://cedardb.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["CedarDB"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800597889, "item_id": 50037368, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037368", "by": "jiggawatts", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wish more database engines used a Task-based design like Umbra / CedarDB.", "excerpt": "I wish more database engines used a Task-based design like Umbra / CedarDB. Most of the DB engines out there still seem to use a \"n-threads\" style parallelism with exchange operations and poor async I/O management. DuckDB is improving on this front, but in some sense is catching up to R&D (and implementation!) that is now decades old. A \"rhetorical challenge\" I like to give software developers working on systems like", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why DuckDB 2.0 is faster"}, {"id": 799404128, "item_id": 49962758, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49962758", "by": "vovavili", "date": "2026-10-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "These guys know game.", "excerpt": "I was actually just recently looking if there is a self-hostable alternative to a HTAP system like TiDB + TiFlash with a Postgres-compatible syntax, but LLMs didn't really pick up on CedarDB yet. These guys know game.", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted HTAP Postgres-compatible database", "switched_from": "", "story": "We ported the original Doom to SQL"}, {"id": 765925536, "item_id": 47870346, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870346", "by": "atombender", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The most novel design, I think, is CedarDB", "excerpt": "There are definitely hybrid OLTP-OLAP databases, or HTAP (Hybrid Transaction and Analytical Processing). Microsoft and, I believe, Oracle both have HTAP tech. The most novel design, I think, is CedarDB (developed by Thomas Neumann's database group at TUM), which adaptively stores both row and column versions of the data [1], where some data is permanently compressed to columnar format and hot rows are converted \"just", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Columnar Storage Is Normalization"}, {"id": 750527313, "item_id": 46907957, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907957", "by": "mhh__", "date": "2026-02-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm pretty helpful that CedarDb sticks the landing", "excerpt": "I like \"just use postgres\" but postgres is getting a bit long in the tooth in some ways, so I'm pretty helpful that CedarDb sticks the landing. https://cedardb.com/ I suspect it not being open source may prevent a certain level of proliferation unfortunately.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "It's 2026, Just Use Postgres"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["self-hosted htap postgres-compatible database", "database"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46826011", "title": "Efficient String Compression for Modern Database Systems", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50035530", "title": "Why DuckDB 2.0 is faster", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49948300", "title": "We ported the original Doom to SQL", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47862626", "title": "Columnar Storage Is Normalization", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46905555", "title": "It's 2026, Just Use Postgres", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46334990", "title": "What Does a Database for SSDs Look Like?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 2}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 800597889, "item_id": 50037368, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037368", "by": "jiggawatts", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wish more database engines used a Task-based design like Umbra / CedarDB.", "excerpt": "I wish more database engines used a Task-based design like Umbra / CedarDB. Most of the DB engines out there still seem to use a \"n-threads\" style parallelism with exchange operations and poor async I/O management. DuckDB is improving on this front, but in some sense is catching up to R&D (and implementation!) that is now decades old. A \"rhetorical challenge\" I like to give software developers working on systems like", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why DuckDB 2.0 is faster"}, {"id": 799404128, "item_id": 49962758, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49962758", "by": "vovavili", "date": "2026-10-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "These guys know game.", "excerpt": "I was actually just recently looking if there is a self-hostable alternative to a HTAP system like TiDB + TiFlash with a Postgres-compatible syntax, but LLMs didn't really pick up on CedarDB yet. These guys know game.", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted HTAP Postgres-compatible database", "switched_from": "", "story": "We ported the original Doom to SQL"}, {"id": 765925536, "item_id": 47870346, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870346", "by": "atombender", "date": "2026-04-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The most novel design, I think, is CedarDB", "excerpt": "There are definitely hybrid OLTP-OLAP databases, or HTAP (Hybrid Transaction and Analytical Processing). Microsoft and, I believe, Oracle both have HTAP tech. The most novel design, I think, is CedarDB (developed by Thomas Neumann's database group at TUM), which adaptively stores both row and column versions of the data [1], where some data is permanently compressed to columnar format and hot rows are converted \"just", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Columnar Storage Is Normalization"}, {"id": 750527313, "item_id": 46907957, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907957", "by": "mhh__", "date": "2026-02-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm pretty helpful that CedarDb sticks the landing", "excerpt": "I like \"just use postgres\" but postgres is getting a bit long in the tooth in some ways, so I'm pretty helpful that CedarDb sticks the landing. https://cedardb.com/ I suspect it not being open source may prevent a certain level of proliferation unfortunately.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "It's 2026, Just Use Postgres"}, {"id": 749601504, "item_id": 46850094, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46850094", "by": "hcs", "date": "2026-02-01", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "After decompression, with the performance characteristics you'd expect.", "excerpt": "After decompression, with the performance characteristics you'd expect. If it has to come off disk it's still a win or at least usually breaks even in their measurements. https://cedardb.com/blog/string_compression/#query-runtime The paper suggests that you could rework string matching to work on the compressed data but they haven't done it.", "context": "", "use_case": "Database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Efficient String Compression for Modern Database Systems"}, {"id": 749592416, "item_id": 46849526, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849526", "by": "ForHackernews", "date": "2026-02-01", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Seems to be another commercial cloud-hosted thing offering a Postgres API?", "excerpt": "Never heard of CedarDB. Seems to be another commercial cloud-hosted thing offering a Postgres API? https://dbdb.io/db/cedardb https://cedardb.com/blog/ode_to_postgres/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Efficient String Compression for Modern Database Systems"}, {"id": 741395680, "item_id": 46337230, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46337230", "by": "cmrdporcupine", "date": "2025-12-20", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the more commercialized product that is following up on some of this research", "excerpt": "Yep, and the work on https://www.cs.cit.tum.de/dis/research/leanstore/ that preceded it. And CedarDB https://cedardb.com/ the more commercialized product that is following up on some of this research, including employing many of the key researchers.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What Does a Database for SSDs Look Like?"}]}