What is YugabyteDB used for?

YugabyteDB is a PostgreSQL-compatible, cloud-native distributed SQL database for transactional workloads that need scale, fault tolerance or multi-region deployment. It is a good fit for scale-out transactional databases, globally distributed applications and migrating PostgreSQL apps to a resilient cluster.

Is YugabyteDB open source?

Yes. YugabyteDB is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at yugabyte/yugabyte-db and is written mainly in C.

Yes. YugabyteDB is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host YugabyteDB?

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

What is YugabyteDB an alternative to?

YugabyteDB is an open-source alternative to Google Cloud Spanner, Amazon Aurora, CockroachDB and Azure SQL Database. Other open-source alternatives to Google Cloud Spanner include TiDB and OceanBase.

Is YugabyteDB actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to YugabyteDB was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v2026.1.2.0, published on 22 September 2026. The project has 11k stars on GitHub.

YugabyteDB: open-source alternative to Google Cloud Spanner

About YugabyteDB

YugabyteDB is a distributed SQL database that is compatible with PostgreSQL. It combines the relational features of traditional databases with the scale-out design of NoSQL systems, and is intended for cloud-native OLTP applications that need correct data and at least one of scalability, tolerance to failures or global distribution.

Its SQL layer, YSQL, reuses the PostgreSQL query layer and so supports most PostgreSQL features, including data types, stored procedures, triggers and extensions. Its transaction model follows the design of Google Spanner, using Raft consensus for replication and hybrid logical clocks for distributed ACID transactions, with snapshot, serializable and read committed isolation. Reads are strongly consistent by default and can be tuned to read from followers and replicas.

The database can be configured to withstand failures at the level of a disk, rack, node, zone, region or whole cloud, recovering on its own, and the topics mention multi-region, multi-cloud and Kubernetes deployments. The project is written mainly in C and C++, the repository lists its license as Other, and documentation covers architecture, roadmap and how to build applications.

Key features

PostgreSQL-compatible SQL layer
Distributed ACID transactions
Replication using Raft consensus
Snapshot, serializable and read committed isolation
Automatic failover and repair
Multi-region and multi-cloud deployments
Kubernetes deployment support

Good fit for

→Scale-out transactional databases
→Globally distributed applications
→Migrating PostgreSQL apps to a resilient cluster

Built with: C; Kubernetes
Tags: distributed-database; sql; postgresql-compatible; cloud-native; oltp; multi-region; raft; kubernetes; database

YugabyteDB: questions and answers

What is YugabyteDB used for?: YugabyteDB is a PostgreSQL-compatible, cloud-native distributed SQL database for transactional workloads that need scale, fault tolerance or multi-region deployment. It is a good fit for scale-out transactional databases, globally distributed applications and migrating PostgreSQL apps to a resilient cluster.
Is YugabyteDB open source?: Yes. YugabyteDB is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at yugabyte/yugabyte-db and is written mainly in C.
Is YugabyteDB free?: Yes. YugabyteDB is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host YugabyteDB?: Yes. YugabyteDB can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is YugabyteDB an alternative to?: YugabyteDB is an open-source alternative to Google Cloud Spanner, Amazon Aurora, CockroachDB and Azure SQL Database. Other open-source alternatives to Google Cloud Spanner include TiDB and OceanBase.
Is YugabyteDB actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to YugabyteDB was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v2026.1.2.0, published on 22 September 2026. The project has 11k stars on GitHub.