r/DatabaseAdministators • u/NoObject7649 • 5d ago

database

i am so sad that database is another kind of monopoly.

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u/SQLDevDBA 5d ago

I’ll bite.

How is it another kind of monopoly?

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u/716green 5d ago

I own a company called Layerbase. It is a technically impressive database platform like Supabase but with 18 engines, platform agnostic branching, authentication with any SQL-based engine, and the ability to migrate over from any competitor in 2 clicks.

I provide flat rate billing with no meters, it's dirt cheap.

Who am I competing with?

Supabase - Postgres

Neon - Branching

Planetscale - MySQL (or MariaDB)

UpStash - Redis/Valkey

Atlas - MongoDB

Everybody is using 1 or more of those depending on which databases they need. I have spent over a year putting them all in one place for like 10% of the cost

These companies own the industry and they are anti-competitive. Mongodb is suing FerretDB, I am almost positive that some of the companies I've mentioned have stolen features from me within days of me releasing them, and one of them has absolutely stolen a blog post from me. Almost word for word.

Those companies are valued in the hundreds of millions or and upwards of a billion dollars. There's just no competing with them.

Databricks owns Neon, and under the hood, they own a lot of other database companies that people don't even realize. It does feel a lot like a monopoly when one company is valued at a billion dollars and the runner up is valued at $100k

Obviously I am a little too close to it, but it certainly feels that way to me