Dolt
Ranked 15 of 22 databases by recommenders
People recommend Dolt as a SQL database with Git-style branch and merge, free and open source. The most common caveat is that merge conflicts and non-simple migrations cause trouble.
People recommend Dolt as a SQL database with Git-style branch and merge, free and open source. The most common caveat is that merge conflicts and non-simple migrations cause trouble.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 55%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Git-style branch and merge for data
“Dolt is still the only SQL database with branch and merge.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “What if database branching was easy?” “This question has been answerable in Dolt for years now.”
Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “Looking Forward to Postgres 19: It's About Time” “Dolt for git-like versioned memory”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Broodlink – Multi-agent AI orchestration in Rust with knowledge graph memory” Steady performance and maturity gains
“Dolt is faster overall than MySQL on sysbench now”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “What if database branching was easy?” “We've come a long way in the years since then.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “What if database branching was easy?” Recommended alongside beads for agents
“beads + dolt seems like it would be pretty great”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Zed DeltaDB” “Look into beads/dolt then”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Poor performance and instability under load
“It was a lot of work and had poor performance with a lot of complications.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “What if database branching was easy?” “Dolt was not stable enough to use in heavy load scenarios as well.”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “What if database branching was easy?” Hype and vibecoded ecosystem concerns
“Yegge is here to make money off meme coins and selling Dolt”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns” “Everything touching this ecosystem (Gas Town, Dolt, Beads) seems like the absolute nadir of vibecoded slop”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “DoltLite: A SQLite fork with Git-style version control, built with 2k agent PRs” “Just hype-chasing. Not interested.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Dolt: Version-Controlled SQL Database”
Other databases people recommend
The four most recommended other databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | 816 | 233 | 78% | 13 | 10 yrs42 owners | Approved |
| MySQL | 124 | 107 | 54% | 12 | — | — |
| Microsoft SQL Server | 73 | 59 | 55% | 12 | 20 yrs6 owners | — |
| Microsoft Access | 62 | 39 | 61% | 12 | — | — |
| DoltThis page | 11 | 9 | 55% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
24 of the 26 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Look into beads/dolt then”
“It is entirely possible to solve a lot of this in a more generic way, so that you don't have to solve it each time. That's what dolt is about.”
“Everything touching this ecosystem (Gas Town, Dolt, Beads) seems like the absolute nadir of vibecoded slop”
“beads + dolt seems like it would be pretty great”
“The cool thing about Dolt is that you [eventually] get the features of the databases”
“This question has been answerable in Dolt for years now.”
“We've come a long way in the years since then.”
“Dolt was not stable enough to use in heavy load scenarios as well.”
“Dolt is still the only SQL database with branch and merge.”
“Dolt is faster overall than MySQL on sysbench now”
“It works well and is especially great for data sharing.”
“It was a lot of work and had poor performance with a lot of complications.”
“I filed an issue here and hope to find some time this week to research more”
“Dolt ended up using a constant 3-30kB/s of i/o in the background, while nothing was actually going on.”
“Just hype-chasing. Not interested.”
“"dolt" is a synonym for "idiot"”
“another winner from the school of naming”
“Yegge is here to make money off meme coins and selling Dolt”
“trying to be too clever makes things harder in the long run”
“dolt is cool until you hit merge conflicts, need non-simple migrations”
“Dolt is definitely the most interesting thing mentioned to me.”
“For a production ready implementation of prolly trees you can check Dolt.”
“Dolt for git-like versioned memory”
“it's free and open source, give it a shot”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.