FoundationDB
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 9 distributed databases
Database praised for strict serializable transactions, hands-off reliability and deterministic testing; the client is complicated and needs expertise to use correctly.
Database praised for strict serializable transactions, hands-off reliability and deterministic testing; the client is complicated and needs expertise to use correctly.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 26
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 81%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 26 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Strict serializable transactions
“The best implementation of serializable transactions I've seen is in FoundationDB but it comes with serious costs.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “What Is a Database Transaction?” “very few can guarantee Strict Serializability in a distributed setting, like FoundationDB does”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Intro to Foundation DB via a Distributed Mutex” “Doing it at the kv store level has the advantage of providing serializability”
Comment from 3 May 2026 on Hacker News - Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Clock Synchronization Is a Nightmare”
- Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Jepsen: NATS 2.12.1”
Reliable and hands-off to run
“I've never spent less time thinking about a data store that I use daily.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Flow: Actor-based language for C++, used by FoundationDB” “has been extremely reliable and hands-off, administration-wise”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Flow: Actor-based language for C++, used by FoundationDB” “FDB is an excellent DB with very strong operational guarantees”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “TigerBeetle: A Trillion Transactions [video]” Deterministic simulation testing
“FoundationDB is awesome testing wise as they have deterministic simulation testing”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Flow: Actor-based language for C++, used by FoundationDB” “already invented, and just slightly more tested than others on the market”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Object storage is all you need”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak website and documentation
“it's weird that Apple, Snowflake, and the other big contributors have put essentially zero calories into documentation/website/etc.”
Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “FoundationDB's Flow – Bringing Actor-Based Concurrency to C++11” “Why has FoundationDB not been professionalised? Better website, better docs, official GUI?”
Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “FoundationDB's Flow – Bringing Actor-Based Concurrency to C++11”
Other distributed databases people recommend
The four most recommended other distributed 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FoundationDBThis page | 26 | 6 | 81% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Google Cloud Spanner | 23 | 2 | 92% | 9 | — | Approved |
| CockroachDB | 19 | 11 | 63% | 11 | — | — |
| rqlite | 13 | 4 | 76% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Apache Cassandra | 12 | 15 | 44% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
33 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Sometimes it requires an whole new language!”
“FDB as our metadata store which is the sort of workload it is really good at”
“the client is complicated and needs expertise to use correctly”
“already invented, and just slightly more tested than others on the market”
“What if you just ran FoundationDB instead?”
“Foundationdb has a good solution to this.”
“both of which have a favorable reputation for quality in both design and implementation”
“I think you can get this with FoundationDB, I should experiment rather than hypothesizing, but it feels like it would be nicer”
“FoundationDB (CP) for the refs”
“see it as such incredible technology for the enterprise”
“I think FoundationDB has that crown.”
“it's weird that Apple, Snowflake, and the other big contributors have put essentially zero calories into documentation/website/etc.”
“it converts all normal DBA tasks into development tasks”
“Why has FoundationDB not been professionalised? Better website, better docs, official GUI?”
“To me this is not "Actors" at all.”
“I strongly recommend poking around with Foundation for this”
“probably one of most underrated DB engines out there”
“C/C++ based and then owned by apple make it not suitable for the role”
“Doing it at the kv store level has the advantage of providing serializability”
“they all give you fault tolerance for free without much involvement from your side”
“excellent db's meant for very specific use cases”
“FDB is an excellent DB with very strong operational guarantees”
“The best implementation of serializable transactions I've seen is in FoundationDB but it comes with serious costs.”
“JFS recommends using a distributed key-value store to host metadata, such as TiKV or FoundationDB”
“Fdb is a pain to work with locally, but is an extremely nice piece of kit.”
“very few can guarantee Strict Serializability in a distributed setting, like FoundationDB does”
“because it’s serializable it takes away an entire class of error to consider”
“which to me feel like the right solution to the problem”
“FoundationDB provides strict serializability by default.”
“I've never spent less time thinking about a data store that I use daily.”
“FoundationDB is awesome testing wise as they have deterministic simulation testing”
“has been extremely reliable and hands-off, administration-wise”
“But they miss critical aspect of it and that’s isolated memory between processors.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.