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FathomDB

discontinued

by FathomDB · since 2009 · also known as Fathom DB

Early YC-backed MySQL-as-a-service on AWS and Rackspace; the team joined Meteor in 2014 and it closed.

relationalmanaged serviceproprietarylegacy
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discontinued. The FathomDB team joined Meteor in 2014 and the hosted MySQL service was shut down. Use Amazon RDS, PlanetScale or another managed MySQL.

Overview

FathomDB was a Y Combinator startup, founded in 2008, that sold hosted MySQL as a service on Amazon and Rackspace clouds and claims to have launched the first relational database-as-a-service, around the time Amazon RDS appeared. Customers got a hosted MySQL server instead of running database VMs themselves, and the team also contributed early code to OpenStack's database-as-a-service effort. FathomDB later started building a 'cloud-first' relational database but did not finish it; in 2014 the company joined Meteor, the JavaScript application platform, and the hosted service was wound down. Its significance is historical, as one of the first database-as-a-service businesses.

Transactional apps (OLTP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +One of the first hosted relational database services, on both AWS and Rackspace
  • +Stock MySQL compatibility, so applications needed no changes

Trade-offs

  • −Service shut down in 2014
  • −Customers had to migrate elsewhere when the team joined Meteor

Great for

  • +Historical reference for the early database-as-a-service market
  • +Background on how hosted MySQL evolved before RDS and PlanetScale dominated

Think twice for

  • −Any current workload: the service no longer exists

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 7 of 25 tracked

✓Transactions
✓Joins
✓Secondary indexes
✓Triggers
✓Stored procedures
✓Durable persistence
✓Role-based access
–Full-text search
–Vector search
–Geospatial
–JSON
–Change data capture
–Materialized views
–TTL / expiry
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Compression
–Encryption at rest
–Time travel
–Branching
–Online schema changes
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Small · ≤ 100 GB
Horizontal scaling
None
Multi-region
No
Transactions
Full ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Strict
Architecture
Client server, Primary replica
Query languages
SQL

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

available on · AWS

Ecosystem

compatible withMySQL
apis & protocolsMySQL wire protocol

Alternatives to FathomDB

Compare all→
Amazon RDSRelational27.1

AWS's managed service for six relational engines: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server and Db2.

fathomdb vs amazon-rds →
PlanetScaleRelational25.7

Performance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching.

fathomdb vs planetscale →
Google Cloud SQLRelational10.9

Google Cloud's managed MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQL Server, with an Enterprise Plus tier for fast failover.

fathomdb vs google-cloud-sql →
MySQLRelational82.3

The web's default open-source SQL database, now on calendar versioning with 9.7 as the LTS line.

fathomdb vs mysql →
Progress OpenEdgeRelational20.4

Integrated RDBMS plus ABL 4GL application platform behind thousands of ERP and vertical business apps.

fathomdb vs progress-openedge →
MultigresRelational12.4

Alpha-stage, Vitess-inspired sharding, pooling and HA layer for unmodified PostgreSQL, led by Supabase.

fathomdb vs multigres →

FathomDB FAQ

What is FathomDB?

FathomDB is a relational database by FathomDB, first released in 2009. FathomDB was a Y Combinator startup, founded in 2008, that sold hosted MySQL as a service on Amazon and Rackspace clouds and claims to have launched the first relational database-as-a-service, around the time Amazon RDS appeared. Customers got a hosted MySQL server instead of running database VMs themselves, and the team also contributed early code to OpenStack's database-as-a-service effort. FathomDB later started building a 'cloud-first' relational database but did not finish it; in 2014 the company joined Meteor, the JavaScript application platform, and the hosted service was wound down. Its significance is historical, as one of the first database-as-a-service businesses.

Is FathomDB open source?

No. FathomDB is proprietary, closed-source software.

Does FathomDB support ACID transactions?

Yes. FathomDB supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.

Does FathomDB scale horizontally?

FathomDB does not scale horizontally; it runs on a single node, so you scale it up rather than out. It is comfortable at small scale (≤ 100 GB).

How can I run FathomDB?

You can use the vendor's managed cloud. It is available on AWS.

What is FathomDB best for?

FathomDB is a strong fit for historical reference for the early database-as-a-service market; and background on how hosted MySQL evolved before RDS and PlanetScale dominated. Think twice for any current workload: the service no longer exists.

What are the best alternatives to FathomDB?

Common alternatives to FathomDB include Amazon RDS, PlanetScale, Google Cloud SQL, MySQL and Progress OpenEdge. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

Is FathomDB still maintained?

FathomDB is discontinued. The FathomDB team joined Meteor in 2014 and the hosted MySQL service was shut down. Use Amazon RDS, PlanetScale or another managed MySQL.

How popular is FathomDB?

FathomDB has little measurable public adoption today, so it ranks near the bottom of the WhichDB Score.