# YugabyteDB

9 Hacker News commenters recommended YugabyteDB and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as an open-source, PostgreSQL-compatible database with real high availability and strong Postgres feature coverage. The most common caveat is a reported four-hour incident and claims that were later walked back in the docs.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong PostgreSQL compatibility (3 comments): "For apps that expect PostgreSQL probably Yugabyte" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46547505)) "yugabytedb has much better postgres compatibility" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395602)) "Yugabyte or CockroachDB for Postgres compat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48738235))
- Real high availability for Postgres (3 comments): "we can achieve enterprise-grade HA without high cost or high maintenance complexity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46360164)) "Some forks, like YugabyteDB, provide real HA with most PostgreSQL features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46337531)) "Yugabyte is the best open source postgres for HA." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359444))
- Seen as leading open source option (2 comments): "what I consider the leading edge of open source RDBMS managed solutions, Yugabyte" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873355)) "Yugabyte open source covers a lot of this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46337502))

## What people warn about

- Reported incident and walked-back docs (2 comments): "if we look at the latest version of their docs it seems they backed off that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48443640)) "it seems they had a four hour incident a few months ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46362845))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [FoundationDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/foundationdb.md): 26 recommend
- [CockroachDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cockroachdb.md): 19 recommend
- [rqlite](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rqlite.md): 13 recommend
- [Apache Cassandra](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apache-cassandra.md): 12 recommend
- [TiDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tidb.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "YugabyteDB", https://hackerapproved.com/p/yugabytedb/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).