piladb
discontinuedby Fernando Álvarez · since 2015
Go REST database whose only data structure is the stack: PUSH, POP and PEEK JSON values in named stacks.
discontinued. No commits on the main branch since March 2018 (v0.2.0-alpha); unmaintained.
Overview
piladb is a lightweight in-memory database engine in Go whose only data structure is the stack ('pila' is Spanish for stack). You create databases and named stacks through a REST API, then push, pop, peek, size or flush JSON values of any type, with the top element always available in constant time; stacks grow until they hit host or configured limits. It ships as a single self-contained binary configured over the API or CLI flags, and was written by Fernando Álvarez in Madrid. The last tagged release is v0.2.0-alpha from April 2018 and the main branch has not moved since; it is a neat teaching project in API-first database design rather than a production store.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +Dead-simple stack semantics with constant-time access to the top element
- +Clean REST API and single static binary
Trade-offs
- −In-memory only: data is lost on restart
- −Alpha quality and unmaintained since 2018
Great for
- +Teaching REST API and database design
- +Throwaway LIFO work stacks in prototypes
Think twice for
- −Durable data
- −Production queues
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 2 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Small · ≤ 100 GB
- Horizontal scaling
- None
- Multi-region
- No
- Transactions
- None
- Consistency
- Strong
- Schema
- Schemaless
- Architecture
- In memory, Single node
- Query languages
- HTTP REST
In-memory only; capacity bounded by host RAM or configured limits.
Deployment
Ecosystem
Alternatives to piladb
The in-memory data structure server that became the default cache, now with search, JSON and vectors built in.
piladb vs redis →The Linux Foundation's BSD-licensed fork of Redis, now the default engine on AWS and Google Cloud.
piladb vs valkey →An SQS-style message queue implemented as a lightweight Postgres extension.
piladb vs pgmq →A Redis-protocol database on RocksDB that trades a little latency for disk-sized capacity.
piladb vs apache-kvrocks →AWS's serverless key-value and document store with single-digit-millisecond reads at any scale.
piladb vs amazon-dynamodb →Apple's ordered, strictly serializable distributed key-value store, built to have layers on top.
piladb vs foundationdb →piladb FAQ
What is piladb?
piladb is a key-value database by Fernando Álvarez, first released in 2015. piladb is a lightweight in-memory database engine in Go whose only data structure is the stack ('pila' is Spanish for stack). You create databases and named stacks through a REST API, then push, pop, peek, size or flush JSON values of any type, with the top element always available in constant time; stacks grow until they hit host or configured limits. It ships as a single self-contained binary configured over the API or CLI flags, and was written by Fernando Álvarez in Madrid. The last tagged release is v0.2.0-alpha from April 2018 and the main branch has not moved since; it is a neat teaching project in API-first database design rather than a production store.
Is piladb open source?
Yes. piladb is open source. License: MIT License.
Does piladb support ACID transactions?
No. piladb does not provide ACID transactions; its consistency model is strong.
Does piladb scale horizontally?
piladb 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 piladb?
You can self-host it.
What is piladb best for?
piladb is a strong fit for teaching REST API and database design; and throwaway LIFO work stacks in prototypes. Think twice for durable data.
What are the best alternatives to piladb?
Common alternatives to piladb include Redis, Valkey, PGMQ, Apache Kvrocks and Amazon DynamoDB. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
Is piladb still maintained?
piladb is discontinued. No commits on the main branch since March 2018 (v0.2.0-alpha); unmaintained.
How popular is piladb?
piladb ranks #636 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (0.5/100), and #119 among key-value databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.