# SurrealDB

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/surrealdb/

6 people recommended SurrealDB in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 12 months, in 3 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

4 of the 6 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “Benchmarking SurrealDB 3.x vs. Postgres, Mongo, Neo4j and Redis (With Fsync)”.

**Verdict:** Recommended as one multi-model database for graph, vector and auth features, with v3 praised for speed. Critics point to its source-available BSL license.

Summary written by Claude from 21 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 16 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- One database for graph, vector, auth (2 comments in the sample): "having LLM/vector features, graph, auth, and the database in one place can really help you ship faster" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357110)) "SurrealDB v3 is getting much closer on raw performance while offering a multi-model database" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48356073))
- Native JSON input and serialization (2 comments in the sample): "since SurrealDB accepts JSON as native input I now get free graph lookup on the control flow" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48356111)) "since both uses JSON as its lingua franca, it is pretty easy to serailize data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357877))
- Seen as steady overall progress (2 comments in the sample): "In my personal opinion is a great overall product." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48356178)) "I'm pleased to see SurrealDB making progress." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358217))
- Praised v3 release (1 comment in the sample): "As a beta user, I can testify to the awesomeness of v3, it's fire!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47047897))

## What people warn about

- Proprietary or source-available license (3 comments in the sample): "So, the current up-to date version is proprietary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48362656)) "it's source-available under the BSL" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48356515)) "their database is proprietary" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48359532))

## What people recommend instead

- [ScyllaDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/scylladb/): 8 recommend, 4 mixed, 8 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "SurrealDB", https://hackerapproved.com/p/surrealdb/ (6 recommend, 4 mixed, 4 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.