What is ArangoDB used for?

ArangoDB is a native multi-model database for documents, graphs and key-values, queried with an SQL-like language and including built-in search, available self-managed or as a cloud service. It is a good fit for graph queries over connected data, combining documents and relationships in one database, and searching and ranking data with ArangoSearch.

Is ArangoDB open source?

Yes. ArangoDB is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at arangodb/arangodb and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. ArangoDB is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host ArangoDB?

Yes. ArangoDB can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is ArangoDB an alternative to?

ArangoDB is an open-source alternative to Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase Capella, MongoDB Atlas and Amazon DocumentDB. Other open-source alternatives to Azure Cosmos DB include SurrealDB, RavenDB and MongoDB.

Is ArangoDB actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to ArangoDB was on 2 October 2026. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.

ArangoDB: open-source alternative to Azure Cosmos DB

About ArangoDB

ArangoDB is a multi-model database that stores documents, graphs and key-value data in a single engine. Instead of running separate systems for each data model, applications query connected data through one SQL-like language, with JavaScript extensions available for custom logic.

Every node in a graph is a JSON document, so existing document data can be imported and relationships can be queried across multiple levels of joins. ArangoSearch, an integrated search engine, adds text search and ranking. For scale and resilience the database can shard data horizontally across machines and replicate it to cluster nodes with automatic failover.

ArangoDB can be installed from a download or started in Docker, and runs on-premises or in any cloud. The Arango Managed Platform (AMP) creates deployments on major cloud providers and can be tried for free. A free Community Edition and a commercial Enterprise Edition without a dataset size limit are offered; the repository lists its license simply as Other, so check the terms before production use.

Key features

Document, graph and key-value data models
SQL-like query language
JavaScript extensions for custom logic
ArangoSearch full-text search and ranking
Horizontal scaling through sharding
Replication with automatic failover
Managed cloud deployments via AMP

Good fit for

→Graph queries over connected data
→Combining documents and relationships in one database
→Searching and ranking data with ArangoSearch

Built with: C++
Tags: database; graph-database; document-database; multi-model; nosql; key-value; search; distributed

ArangoDB: questions and answers

What is ArangoDB used for?: ArangoDB is a native multi-model database for documents, graphs and key-values, queried with an SQL-like language and including built-in search, available self-managed or as a cloud service. It is a good fit for graph queries over connected data, combining documents and relationships in one database, and searching and ranking data with ArangoSearch.
Is ArangoDB open source?: Yes. ArangoDB is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at arangodb/arangodb and is written mainly in C++.
Is ArangoDB free?: Yes. ArangoDB is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host ArangoDB?: Yes. ArangoDB can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is ArangoDB an alternative to?: ArangoDB is an open-source alternative to Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase Capella, MongoDB Atlas and Amazon DocumentDB. Other open-source alternatives to Azure Cosmos DB include SurrealDB, RavenDB and MongoDB.
Is ArangoDB actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to ArangoDB was on 2 October 2026. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.