January 5, 2026
Drama in the data
Databases in 2025: A Year in Review
Big money moves, security fears, and memes — the crowd is loud
TLDR: PostgreSQL dominated 2025 with big acquisitions and a new Microsoft service, while the comments lit up over AI protocol security, missing time‑series coverage, and merger corrections. It matters because money and momentum favor Postgres, but the community’s watchdogs and jokesters are shaping the narrative in real time.
PostgreSQL—the trusty open‑source workhorse—once again stole the show in 2025, with billion‑dollar buyouts and shiny new cloud services. Databricks scooped Neon, Snowflake grabbed CrunchyData, and Microsoft rolled out HorizonDB. The article also dishes drama: Redis flipped its license (again), SurrealDB’s “great” benchmarks allegedly forgot to save to disk, and vibe‑coding plus a Wu‑Tang time capsule made nerd news feel oddly cool.
But the comments are where the party is. The spiciest thread backed Andy Pavlo’s skepticism about MCP (Model Context Protocol) security, arguing that giving AI “context” can clash with the basic rule of least privilege. Cue hot takes, eye‑rolls, and one commenter basically yelling “don’t hand your database keys to a vibe.” Others pounced on omissions: “Where’s time‑series?” demanded one reader, while another corrected the mergers list, noting EdgeDB’s rebrand to Gel and its deal with Vercel.
Comic relief came fast: fans hyped CMU DB’s “gangsta intros” and pre‑lecture DJ sets, spawning the meme: “database DJ > page cache.” And yes, someone dragged Coldplay back into tech lore with breakup jokes. The verdict: Postgres is king, but the community is pure chaos—equal parts security hall monitor, acquisitions fact‑checker, and hype‑man. It’s messy, it’s loud, it’s very online.
Key Points
- •PostgreSQL v18 released in November 2025, adding asynchronous I/O, skip scans, and optimizer improvements.
- •Databricks acquired Neon (PostgreSQL DBaaS) for $1 billion and raised two large funding rounds.
- •Snowflake purchased CrunchyData for $250 million and offers a PostgreSQL DBaaS built on Crunchy Bridge.
- •Microsoft launched HorizonDB, a PostgreSQL DBaaS with an Aurora-like single-primary architecture.
- •Movement toward distributed PostgreSQL included two scale-out project announcements and Supabase hiring Sugu in June 2025.