LadybugDB
Shares rank 3 of 8 graph databases by recommenders
Embeddable graph database that continues KuzuDB after it was sunset, recommended as a sustainable fork. Critics say it is still limited in use cases and functionality.
Embeddable graph database that continues KuzuDB after it was sunset, recommended as a sustainable fork. Critics say it is still limited in use cases and functionality.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Continues KuzuDB after its sunset
“Might be worth checking out LadybugDB (the main fork), migration is pretty easy.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “Grafeo – A fast, lean, embeddable graph database built in Rust” “There’s a fork https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug that you can use.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “I Analyzed 163K Lines of Kuzu's Codebase. Here's Why Apple Wanted It” “Ladybug looks promising after KuzuDB was sunset”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: LatticeDB – Like SQLite but for graph databases” - Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Grafeo – A fast, lean, embeddable graph database built in Rust”
- Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “DuckPGQ – A DuckDB community extension for graph workloads”
Active development with new contributors
“The 0.20.x end of the month release should have some interesting optimizations.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: LatticeDB – Like SQLite but for graph databases” “New open source contributors who I didn't know before ramping up.”
Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “Grafeo – A fast, lean, embeddable graph database built in Rust”
Other graph databases people recommend
The four most recommended other graph 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LatticeDB | 9 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| Neo4j | 8 | 17 | 32% | 6 | — | — |
| LadybugDBThis page | 7 | 3 | 70% | 5 | — | — |
| Kuzu graph database | 7 | 1 | 88% | 5 | — | — |
| Grafeo | 7 | 8 | 47% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Highly recommend taking inspiration from Kuzudb/Ladybugdb and cozodb.”
“The 0.20.x end of the month release should have some interesting optimizations.”
“Ladybug looks promising after KuzuDB was sunset”
“There’s a fork https://github.com/LadybugDB/ladybug that you can use.”
“Icebug and LadybugDB can be tightly integrated to efficiently move tables encoded as compressed sparse row (CSR) into arrow memory.”
“If you like kuzudb check out”
“Ladybug is still very limited in terms of use cases and functionalities.”
“Cool project though! Very nice!!”
“seems to be the only sustainable fork”
“found memory usage insanely high”
“some internal warts that makes it hard to compose queries”
“Might be worth checking out LadybugDB (the main fork), migration is pretty easy.”
“New open source contributors who I didn't know before ramping up.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.